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4 



AN INQUIRY 


INTO THE 

ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION 


THE 

Origin anli of tlje Clrwxlr of €|rmt, 

AND THE 

GOSPEL MINISTRY. 

IN FOUR PARTS. 


BEING A COMPLETE REFUTATION OF ALL STRANGE NOTIONS AND 
SECTARIAN HERESIES ON THE SUBJECT OF 

THE CHURCH AND MINISTRY. 

BY THE 

! ' RET. R. ABBEY. 

W 

EDITED BY THOMAS 0. SUMMERS, D.D. 

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Kaslitulle, &enn. : 

PUBLISHED BY E. STEVENSON & F. A. OWEN, AGENTS, 

FOR THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, SOUTH. 

1856 . 




J3V64-T , 

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Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by 
STEVENSON AND OWEN, Agents, 

In the Office of the Clerk of the District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee. 


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STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY A. A. STITT, 
SOUTHERN METHODIST PUBLISHING HOUSE, NASHVILLE, TENN. 











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TO THE 

KEY. CHARLES K. MARSHALL, A.M. 

Key. and dear Brother: 

It was in conversations with yourself that my mind was 
directed more particularly than it had been before to the 
kindred subjects of Church polity and ministerial authority. 

The interest you have manifested in a few small works I 
have heretofore published on these subjects, together with 
my profbund respect for your character, talents, piety, and 
usefulness as a minister, and our long and intimate friendship, 
makes it, in my judgment, exceedingly appropriate that I 
should offer this volume in dedication to you, as a token of 
my high regard and sincere affection. 

Your friend and brother in the gospel of Christ, 

R. ABBEY. 

September, 1856 . 




(Hi) 












PAGE 


Contents. 


DEDICATION. iii 

INTRODUCTION. XI 

PREFACE. XIX 


PART ONE. 

THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH. 


CHAPTER I. 

A CHURCH. 23 

CHAPTER II. 

A VIEW OF THE CHURCH TAKEN FROM THINGS EXCLUDED FROM 

THE SCRIPTURES. 34 

CHAPTER III. 

ECCLESIASTICAL ORGANISM. 40 

CHAPTER IV. 

ECCLESIASTICAL ORGANISM, CONTINUED. 48 

CHAPTER V. 

ORIGIN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. GO 

(V) 













VI 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER VI. 

ORIGIN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH, CONTINUED. 70 

CHAPTER VII. 

ORIGIN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH, CONTINUED. 81 

CHAPTER VIII. 

SYNOPTIC VIEW OF THE EARLY CHURCH. 94 

CHAPTER IX. 

A MORE GENERAL VIEW OF THE CHARACTER OF THE APOSTOLIC 

CHURCH. 106 

PART TWO. 

CHURCH POLITY AND PRINCIPLES. 

CHAPTER I. 

THE TEST OF A CHURCH’S VALIDITY. 114 

CHAPTER II. 

“HEAR THE CHURCH”. 125 

CHAPTER III. 

OF CHURCH OFFICERS OR RULERS. 133 

CHAPTER IV. 

NUMBER OF ORDERS IN THE MINISTRY. 148 

CHAPTER V. 

OUR OBLIGATIONS TO OBSERVE PRIMITIVE OR APOSTOLIC CUSTOMS. 159 

CHAPTER VI. 

NO FORM OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT CAN BE, EXCLUSIVELY, THE 

LEGAL FORM. 172 













CONTENTS 


Vll 


CHAPTER VII. 

ORDINATION. 194 

CHAPTER VIII. 

ORDINATION BY MR. WESLEY. 200 

CHAPTER IX. 

THE DEACONRY. 216 

CHAPTER X. 

THE EPISCOPATE AND PRESBYTERATE. 220 

CHAPTER XI. 

THE APOSTOLATE. 232 

CHAPTER XII. 


THE PRACTICAL DISTINCTION BETWEEN BISHOP AND PRESBYTER.. 241 


PART THREE. 

THE APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION. 


CHAPTER I. 

THE QUESTION IN ISSUE. 247 

CHAPTER II. 

IRRELEVANT QUESTIONS. 251 

CHAPTER III. 

THE TRANSMISSION OF AUTHORITY. 255 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE SCRIPTURES. 258 















Viii CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER V. 

THE FATHERS....... . 262 

CHAPTER VI. 

DIFFICULTY WITH REGARD TO ST. FAUL. 275 

CHAPTER VII. 

A WICKED BISHOP CAN NEITHER BE RETAINED NOR EXCOMMU¬ 


NICATED. 279 

CHAPTER VIII. 

ORIGIN OF EPISCOPACY. 282 

CHAPTER IX. 

ORIGIN OF THE CHURCII OF ENGLAND... 288 

CHAPTER X. 

HOW CAN THE SUCCESSION PASS THROUGH WICKED HANDS ?. 29G 

CHAPTER XI. 

THE ATTEMPT TO AVOID ROME. 801 

CHAPTER XII. 

WHAT ARE THE SUPPOSED ADVANTAGES OF SUCCESSION ?. 304 


CHAPTER XIII. 

SUCCESSION PROVES TOO MUCH, AND THEREFORE PROVES NOTHING. 311 

CHAPTER XIV. 


AN ANALOGICAL ARGUMENT. 314 

y 

CHAPTER XV. 

THE EARLY CANONS. 316 












CONTENTS 


IX 


CHAPTER X Y I. 

SUCCESSION IS INCONSISTENT WITH PROTESTANTISM. 318 

CHAPTER XVII. 

“SUCCESSION” SCHISMATICAL. 327 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE NAKED QUESTION. 331 


PART FOUR. 

ECCLESIASTICAL EXCLUSIVENESS. 


CHAPTER I. 

CONSISTENCY OF DENOMINATIONAL DIFFERENCES. 350 


CHAPTER II. 

POSITION OF POPERY. 358 

CHAPTER III. 

CREEDS. 365 

CHAPTER IV. 

PERSECUTION. 371 

CHAPTER V. 

HEREDITARY EXCLUSIVENESS. 382 

CHAPTER VI. 

CEREMONIAL EXCLUSIVENESS . 389 
















X CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER YII. 

INTOLERANCE. 397 

CHAPTER VIII. 


DEFECTIVE KNOWLEDGE. 410 

CHAPTER IX. 

A FAINT PICTURE OF INTOLERANCE... 420 

CHAPTER X. 


“AND WE FORBADE HIM BECAUSE HE FOLLOWETH NOT WITH US.” 428 







Jfitircrhutiott. 


The Reformation of tlie sixteenth century was at one and 
the same time the result of a thousand conforming and 
interworking causes, and the special interference of God in 
his providence. 

It requires but a slight acquaintance with Christianity on 
the one hand, and human nature on the other, and but a 
glance at their antagonism with each other, to enable any 
person to discover the powerful tendency in man to substi¬ 
tute forms, words, works, and actions, in the place of that 
simple trust in God and rectitude of life which are the condi¬ 
tions of salvation. 

A religion of forms, rites, ceremonies, manipulations, and 
external observances, is very seductive, and of very corrupt¬ 
ing tendency. Considering, then, the state of the world, in 
regard to government and popular intelligence, for many ages 
previous to the sixteenth century, it is not to be wondered at 
that religion should have lapsed into the condition of deep 
corruption, superstition, and ecclesiastical domination which 

we find almost universally to prevail at that period. 

(xi) 




Xll 


INTRODUCTION. 


It is assumed, without argument; that Protestant Christi¬ 
anity is a mere return from these corruptions and superstitions 
to the simple religion of the Bible. But there was some¬ 
thing else necessary besides a reformation. It was necessary 
that the Church should keep reformed. 

Every thing we see of religion in the Bible and out of the 
Bible, admonishes us of this alarming tendency in man to 
substitute human actions, and human efforts, and human 
merits, in the place of that simple humiliation and reliance 
upon Jesus Christ as our personal Saviour, which is divinely 
set forth as the only religious requirement. Man must do 
something himself to merit salvation. He must do something 
to cause it. This worldly religion is ever on the stretch to 
arrange the ecclesiastical system, as to its causes and effects, 
as to official order, authority, and procedure, so as to make it 
conform to Ids notions of what it ought to be. 

This was the great incipient error of Romanism, which led 
to all her subsequent superstitions and corruptions. The 
Reformation corrected the then existing error as far as it could 
successfully reach it, but could not cure the tendency to its 
repetition. This can only be done by continual conformity to 
the Scriptures, with every rising and setting sun. The ten¬ 
dency continually exists as strong as ever. 

When the claims of religion press themselves home upon 
a man’s judgment and conscience, his first effort is to shield 
himself behind these legal defences; to plead their considera¬ 
tions in his behalf, and to show to the Almighty that he is 
about to set all matters right by a conformity to them. He 
is going to meet these claims in the very best way he can. 


INTRODUCTION. 


• • • 
Xlll 

He is going to exercise, nay, he is now in the practical exer¬ 
cise, of his best judgment as to what religion ought to be. 
He is examining the relation which he thinks ought to sub¬ 
sist between a merciful God, willing to pardon, and a fallen 
man; and he is now going, on his part, to sustain that rela¬ 
tion. He is ready openly to acknowledge that God is supe¬ 
rior to himself, and is entirely willing, in this arrangement, 
to act the inferior. And now he is ready to go to work at 
religion. 

His first effort is to seek a wonderfully legal Church; and 
then a superlatively legal ministry; and then a mass of un¬ 
commonly legal actions and forms, in the process of the 
worship which is to atone for his sins. When these con¬ 
siderations connect with what is called the ordinances of 
religion, the legality of authority and of modes is esteemed 
so highly, and is so imperiously necessary, as to render the 
legality of Christ’s atonement quite a secondary matter. 
With him the kingdom of God comes especially and essen¬ 
tially with observation. He recognizes a priesthood and a 
temple service as clearly as did the Jews, though not pre¬ 
cisely in the same form. He looks to the minister and the 
Church; and only to Jesus Christ through them, and by their 
authority and sanction. 

Hence we have among us not only the Romanism of Rome, 
and Popery proper, but the incipient Romanism of Churchism 
and ecclesiastical exclusiveness. 

These religious errors whittle down the church to the 
smallest point of sectarian bigotry. In their arguments they 
set out with plausible hypotheses, and then, by a course of 



XIV 


INTRODUCTION. 


superficial and inconclusive reasonings and special pleadings, 
they seem to make out their case to the satisfaction of all who 
were previously thoroughly determined to believe nothing on 
the subject involved, but these dogmas. 

The recent argument of a somewhat celebrated apostate to 
Rome, ex-Bishop Ives, in the u Trials of a Mind,” is held to be 
unanswerable. Grant his premise — an ecclesiasticism — a 
religion coming specifically and essentially through the Church 
and the ministry—and his conclusions cannot be avoided. 
No man can logically stay away from Rome proper. No 
secondary establishment will answer. 

The reformation in England was to a considerable extent 
thorough and evangelical. It was also to a considerable 
extent merely legal and political. This latter party was anti- 
popish, but still, thoroughly Romish. And their principles 
were at length, in 1604, attired in the proper livery of Cliurch- 
ism, and brought forward and publicly and authoritatively 
exhibited upon the forum of England by Archbishop Laud, 
the greatest bigot and the greatest tyrant that ever annoyed 
and damaged the Anglican Church. 

Before this time the principles of the Romish party in 
England were latent, but now they were brought boldly for¬ 
ward. They were opposed to Popery, that is, to the rule of 
the Pope as the head of the Church, and to many corruptions 
and practices that had incidentally got worked into the rites 
and performances of religion. But they were in favor of the 
doctrine that God deals not directly with men in conferring 
spiritual blessings, but that he places these blessings in the 
reach or keeping of the Church , or its bishops , and that the 



INTRODUCTION. 


XV 


people are to look to these vicegerents and get these blessings 
at their hands. 

This is the essence, and the only essence, of Romanism, as 
contradistinguished from the Christianity of the Bible. The 
Bible says the people are to look directly to God in the person 
of Jesus Christ, for blessings. Romanism says, No: look 
to the priests, and let the priests look to God for you. The. 
Bible says the minister of the gospel is but an ecclesiastical 
officer, a mere minister. Romanism says, No: he is the vice¬ 
gerent or earthly agent of Christ. This is the fundamental 
error of Romanism. Other corruptions and debasing super¬ 
stitions are merely the results of this, as its accidents or 
incidents. 

These considerations—a mediatorial Church and priesthood 
—naturally lead men to a close examination of the legal 
authority of the ministry, and the legal construction of the 
Church; for their religion is based upon this legality. They 
are not in search of proper or legal authority to preach the 
gospel, for the purpose of calling sinners to repentance, and 
to the exercise of faith in Jesus Christ, but legal authority 
to administer the sacraments. 

The Papist gets his Divine blessings second-hand from the 
priest, in the performance of the mass, the confessional, the 
wafer, the extreme unction, the bones of saints, etc., etc.; 
while the mere Romanist of modern type, the Puseyite, or 
High Churchman, gets his in the same way, by means of 
baptism, or baptism performed in some particular mode, im¬ 
mersion, for instance, or the eucharist, confirmation, crosses, 
etc. 


XVI 


INTRODUCTION. 


It is all Romanism, whether it have a confessional, a mass, 
or an immaculate conception, or no. 

These things naturally lead men to exclusiveness. The 
strict legality of this supposed agency, or vicegerency, is in 
itself naturally exclusive. It repudiates every thing that 
deviates a hair’s-breadth from itself. And hence the absorb¬ 
ing idea of a Church of peculiar construction, exactly mod¬ 
elled, precisely adjusted, and framed after some supposed 
Divine form. And hence the supposed necessity of a derived 
authority in the ministry; and hence the apostolic succession, 
and the rest of the catalogue of Puseyitish novelties respect¬ 
ing the constitution of the Church of Christ, and the simple 
ministry of his gospel of salvation. 

Again, these errors and these tendencies have caused good 
men to look too far and too radically in the other direction. 
The lack of necessity for a stringent episcopacy led men to 
embrace the doctrine of parity in the ministry. If they 
could dislodge the argument that nothing was ecclesiastically 
legal but episcopacy, they supposed they had of course estab¬ 
lished the doctrine that nothing was ecclesiastically legal but 
parity. 

The errors growing out of an atoning Church and priest¬ 
hood, with its high order of ministry, which could stand 
between mundane Christianity and the blessings of God, 
could, in their estimation, be overthrown and exposed only 
by the stringent doctrine of legal parity. 

The correction of these errors is the design of the following 
chapters in part. It is also attempted to straighten out the 
whole subject, and make it plain to the student of divinity 


INTRODUCTION. 


XV13 


and to the Common reader. The author has endeavored to 
look into the ecclesiastical constitution briefly, yet thoroughly 
and independently. lie has pursued as plain and simple a 
course of reasoning as practicable, for the design is to make 
the work useful . 

lie has endeavored to follow after no uninspired man; 
though every effort has been made to render the labors of 
others available, as far as their views have corresponded to 
those of the author. The undertaking has been to begin at 
the beginning, and to pursue the subject in its own simple 
and straightforward channel. 

There is a fault, the author conceives, with regard to many 
of the theological and ecclesiastical productions of the age we 
live in. In this respect, religious literature has not improved, 
but, on the contrary, has suffered great loss in the last cen¬ 
tury. He alludes to a want of independence in thinking. To 
depart, even in phraseology, from “ standard writers,” is a sin 
too great to be ventured upon. The standard writers have 
thought all there was to think, and have written all there was 
to write. And now, all we have to do is to rearrange, and 
put into different shapes and forms and compilations, the 
thinking and writing already done for us. 

He confesses he is not strict to observe this law in all things. 
He doubts if the men who lived fifty or a hundred years ago 
knew it all; nor is it easy to conceive that the mere fact that 
they lived in those past periods, gave them any preternatural 
endowments. In fact, the notion is almost ventured upon, 
sometimes, that knowledge is, or ought to be, in some sense 
progressive. Or, in other words, that increased opportunities, 



XV111 


INTRODUCTION. 


superior advantages, ouglit to advance, rather than retard, 
scientific or philosophic investigation. 

Nor is it believed to be in the least derogatory to the 
memory of our fathers, or our contemporaries, to extend and 
simplify research into truth beyond the point where the 
labors of others were suspended. 

That the great legacy which our fathers have left us is a 
store of thought and intellectual accumulation, all will allow; 
but, like other legacies, it may be added to without blame. 

The celebrated English philanthropist, Mr. Smithson, looked 
to an u increase of knowledge .” 

No effort has been made to seek for error by travelling out 
of the regular course of the argument; but wherever errors 
have been met, they have been opened out to exposure 
plainly, fairly, independently. 

Search has been made for the Church of Jesus Christ, 
and for the Ministry of his Gospel ; and for the agency 
they separately and conjointly perform, in the system of 
religion set forth in the New Testament. 

And with an humble trust in the Founder of these things, 
it is confidently believed they are exhibited to the observation 
of plain, right-thinking, unprejudiced men, who prefer the 
prosperity of Christianity to the elevation of a party. 





fjrefiut. 


The constitution of a Church is its body of principles. 
These are of course found in the Bible; for a Church is a 
Church of Christ. Men have no more right to form or con¬ 
stitute a Church than to prescribe religion. Religion is of 
God; and the Church is an instrument in the hands of Provi¬ 
dence for the promotion and extension of religion. 

But while the constitution of a Church is found exclusively 
in the Bible, it does by no means follow that the Bible also 
contains the municipal laws which sustain and carry into effect 
such constitutional principles. 

There is a wide difference between a constitution and laws. 
The one is the general fundamental law, or the code of prin¬ 
ciples which must be observed in the making of the more im¬ 
mediate rules of conduct. The laws, as thus contradistin¬ 
guished, are the more immediate, local, temporary, municipal 
rules which direct lioio , in each particular, these constitutional 
provisions shall be observed and followed. 

God made the one, and left man to make the other. 

(xix) 



XX 


PREFACE. 


In the civil and political world around us, a state or nation 
has for its government, first, a constitution, either written or 
understood. This is the supreme mandate, and fixes the 
principles of the government, which are never in the least 
degree to be infringed. Then the separate states, or counties, 
or municipalities, acting under and in obedience to this potent 
grant, make such more temporary and immediate laws as will 
agree with their several conditions and circumstances, and at 
the same time observe and carry out these fundamental regu¬ 
lations. 

And hence in our own country nothing is more common 
than to see different States, cities, towns, and counties making 
different laws, each one looking to its immediate peculiarities 
and circumstances. But at the same time each law grows out 
of and observes and sustains the common constitution. 

This is the philosophic and natural relation between a con¬ 
stitution and its subordinate laws. 

We see the principle, too, quite as plainly in the natural 
world around us. 

Nature has established, for instance, an agricultural consti¬ 
tution , the separate provisions of which can never be violated 
without certain and immediate damage. But this constitu¬ 
tion does not, in the very nature of the case could not, pre¬ 
scribe precisely when, where, and how the clearing of ground, 
planting, ploughing, hoeing, and harvesting must be done. 
And yet every particular instance of all this is done, if done 
without loss and damage, in obedience to and in conformity 
with these fundamental provisions. 

Just so ot the Church. Yes, and of religion, too; and 




PREFACE. 


XXI 


of every system among men which is a combined system of 
theory and practice. 

The following treatise is an attempt to set forth, in a clear 
and practical point of light, the constitution and the laws of 
the Church of Christ, or to separate clearly between the two 
in the practical, every-day workings of the system. 

The author is reluctant to express his belief, though ho 
feels constrained to do so, that heretofore this matter has not 
been carefully looked into. It has rather, in his view, been 
looked at. 

That the libraries all contain very able and very valuable 
treatises upon Church government, is well known to every¬ 
body ) and that far greater ability is found displayed in these 
books than need be looked for in the present volume, the 
author is perfectly well aware; and yet it may be true that 
some very valuable primary thoughts and considerations may 
have failed to strike the mind of previous writers which the 
author may have accidentally stumbled upon. 

After having carefully examined his essay, however, the 
author has the satisfaction to find that, in his judgment, he 
has not in any particular come in conflict with any writings 
that are considered to be of a standard character in the Church 
of which he is a member, though he ought to say plainly to 
the reader, because it is true, that he has not tried in the 
least degree to conform his views to those of any writer or any 
class of writers. 

That the work in its present form is rough and imperfect, 
is readily admitted. In fact, it is very seriously doubted 
whether a work of this sort could be prepared in any tolerable 


PREFACE. 


xxii 

degree of finish or correctness, until the hook be first printed, 
and afterwards subjected to a second course of reflection, ex¬ 
amination, and revision. 

The author makes his most humble obeisance to the Church, 
and leaves his Inquiry in the keeping of his brethren. 

R. A. 


J 


THE 

ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


PART ONE. 


CHAPTER I. 

A CHURCH. 

The term Church is popularly used in several different 
senses: that is, to mean several different things. It is im¬ 
portant, then, if we would have our language understood, to 
know precisely what we mean when the term is used. 

In the Scriptures the term “ Church” is sometimes used to 
denote the entire body of professing Christians on earth, or 
the entire body of true and faithful believers. “ Upon this 
rock I will build my Church,” Matt. xvi. 18; “And the 
Lord added to the Church daily,” etc., Acts ii. 47; “Unto 
him be glory in the Church by Christ,” Eph. iii. 21. See 
also Heb. xii. 23, Eph. iii. 10, Col. i. 24, and a few other 
places. 

The term is also used in the Scriptures to denote a particu¬ 
lar congregation of people who reside at or near the same 

( 23 ) 




24 THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 

place, and who meet statedly at the same place for the pur¬ 
pose of worshipping God according to the commandment of 
Christ. “And when they were come, and had gathered the 
Church together,” etc., Acts xiv. 27; “As I teach every¬ 
where in every Church,” 1 Cor. iv. 17; “ If, therefore, the 
whole Church be come together into one place,” 1 Cor. xiv. 28; 
“And when he had landed at Cesarea, and gone up and 
saluted the Church,” Acts xviii. 22; “ Likewise greet the 
Church that is in their house.” Rom. xvi. 5. See also 1 Cor. 
xviii. 17 : Acts ii. 47; xi. 26; xiv. 23; xv. 22; and per¬ 
haps some other places. 

These are the only two senses in which the visible Church 
is spoken of in the New Testament. 

The term is never used in the Scriptures as in these days, 
to denote a denomination or sect of Christians composed of 
several congregations, as the “Methodist Church,” the 
“ Presbyterian Church,” the “ Protestant Episcopal Church,” 
etc. 

The word Church is sometimes used in respect ,of the 
blessed who are in heaven, and sometimes in regard to the 
doctrines or belief of Christians. But these are foreign to 
the purpose now in hand. 

Lord High Chancellor King, of England, who has ex¬ 
amined into this and kindred questions with a minuteness 
and care almost unexampled in the labors of the learned, in¬ 
forms us ( Prim . Ch ., p. 21) that in all the writings of the 
Fathers for three hundred years from the apostolic age, he 
can find but one instance in which several churches or dis¬ 
tinct congregations are spoken of in the singular number as a 
Church. Cyprian, he says, once, and only once, uses the term 
in this sense, where he speaks of “ the Church of God in 
Africa and Numidia;” and here the term is not used in the 
modern sense of a denomination of Christians. The writer 
speaks geographically, and evidently means that portion of the 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


25 


Christian Cliurcli which exists in those countries. So that it 
may be safely affirmed that neither in the Scriptures, nor in 
ecclesiastical writings in early times, is the term Church ever 
used as we now use it, to denote a denomination or sect of 
Christians. It is invariably used, as above explained, to mean 
either the entire body of believers, or a single congregation. 
When two or more of these congregations are spoken of, they 
are called so many churches. 

It is also, perhaps, true, that in one or two places in 1 Cor¬ 
inthians the place of meeting is spoken of as a church. This, 
however, is quite unimportant in the present discussion. It 
is sufficient for us here to know that in the New Testament 
invariably, and in the writings of Christians for three or four 
hundred years afterwards, at least, a single congregation of 
Christians was known as a Church of Christ; and that two 
or more such congregations were reckoned and spoken of as 
so many separate and distinct churches: though no doubt 
sometimes several congregations in the same city were spoken 
of as a Church. 

In process of time, however, the external ecclesiastical 
form of Christianity, as we shall have occasion to notice as 
we pass on, underwent considerable change. These single sepa¬ 
rate Churches became united in a kind of federate alliance; 
and hence the several Churches thus united under the same 
general jurisdiction, would naturally take the general name 
of a Church, rather than several Churches. 

We hear the Scriptures speak of the Church of Antioch, 
the Church of Rome, the Church of Corinth, of Ephesus, 
etc., etc., and we understand the meaning as above described. 
But at a later period, when we hear those Churches spoken of, 
we understand the expression very differently—we under¬ 
stand all those Churches—in process of years they were more 
or less numerous—which were in confederation with, and under 
the general jurisdiction of those central or parent Churches. 

2 * 


26 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


It is not at all important here that we stop to make any in¬ 
quiry into the occasion, from time to time, of this federation 
of Churches. The fact is sufficient for us to know. We 
might remark, however, that federation in the first place came 
about almost of itself, without any preconcerted plan, or law, 
or arrangement for its accomplishment. Considerations of 
safety, and protection against popular and political aggression 
and persecution, and disturbance from a lawless rabble, first 
brought the thing partially about. And it afterwards became 
more complete in this way: Churches were first planted in 
the chief cities, towns, and commercial centres; and when 
the number of the disciples at any one of these churches 
became too great, and their several places of residence too 
distant for convenient worship in one place, other churches 
would be organized, and surround the parent Church as her 
offspring. The maternal relation between the central and the 
surrounding churches would be much more strong and power¬ 
ful in those days than at present, from the consideration that 
in those early times almost all political, legal, religious, and 
social influence centred and resided in these central towns 
and cities. 

The Churches which we find to have existed in the days of 
the apostles are, for that reason, to be regarded as true, valid, 
Christian Churches. What their essential ingredients or con- 
stituents were; or, in other words, how far a religious organi¬ 
zation may vary from this precise model, and still be a valid 
Christian Church; or, still further, whether the apostolic 
Churches presented any precise uniform model—whether it 
was always the same, or different in different times and places 
—are considerations we will endeavor to inquire into in the 
further prosecution'of this subject. 

But the question now is, What are we to understand by a 
valid Christian Church in these days ? 

We ought to decide this question now, precisely in the 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


27 


way it would have been decided in the days of the apostles. 
The great distinguishing feature among men, in respect to 
religion, as looked at by the apostles and their fellow-Chris- 
tians, was this: believers in Christ, on the one hand, and all 
the world beside on the other. Christians—believers in Christ 
as a personal Saviour—whomsoever and wheresoever they 
might be, were of their party; all others were opposed to 
them. Christian men and women were part and parcel of 
u the Church ” as spoken of in Acts ii. 47 : Eph. iii. 21, etc., 
etc., as above quoted. They were part and parcel of the body 
of Christ. 

Now, what was the name and character, as held and spoken 
of in those days, of a number of such persons, associated 
together for worship, and meeting together to worship at 
stated periods, according to their faith in Christ and the 
teachings of the apostles as they understood those teachings ? 
Were they not invariably regarded and spoken of by inspired 
men as a Church ? They were, beyond all question. The idea 
of an association of Christians not being truly and properly 
a Church, without inquiring any further than the fact that 
they were Christians, and statedly met for public worship, for 
preaching and hearing the word, and for the solemnization of 
the sacraments, was never dreamed of by any man in apos¬ 
tolic times. The slightest intimation of such an idea, directly 
or indirectly, is not in the Scriptures. I do not know that 
an attempt to prove this fact from the Scriptures was ever 
made by any man. 

Then a Church is an association of Christians. The term 
Church means a little more than the mere plural of Christian. 
It means Christians in association as such. And this sup¬ 
poses that they meet together for worship, for mutual edifi¬ 
cation, for the preaching of the word, and for the proper 
administration of the sacraments. 


28 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


A Church, then, is a specific association of Christians. 
When the apostles and early Christians said Church , they 
meant Christians; not in a separate and individual or several 
character, hut in a congregational, or united, or aggregate 
capacity. Church means Christians in association. If they 
be Christians in an associate capacity as Christians, then they 
meet together statedly for worship, the preaching and the 
sacraments being parts of the worship. 

What their particular form of government may have been 
is another question, which cannot materially affect this. If 
their rules of government be such as to create a disability on 
their part to worship God in the way prescribed, then they 
arc not Christians. But if they be Christians, then they do 
govern themselves in that way in which, in their judgment, 
they will be best enabled to carry out Christ’s instructions in 
regard to religion and worship. 

There are two hypotheses, and but two, with regard to the 
test by which a valid Christian Church is pretended to be 
determined. First, the Scriptures; and secondly, the personal 
descent of ministerial authority. The latter mode requires that 
the validity of a Church be tested by the validity of its minis¬ 
ters ; that is, by the validity of their orders. Without stop¬ 
ping here to argue this point, which will come up more 
properly in another part of the discussion, it may suffice per¬ 
haps to suggest that the validity of a ministry and that of a 
Church are not precisely one and the same thing. Christian 
ministers are not Christian Churches. The laity are not 
members of the ministers, but the ministers are themselves 
but members and officers of the Churches. 

The former mode of testing a Church, by the Scriptures, 
requires that we place the association directly alongside of 
the straight edge of inspiration. If it fits, then it is a 
Church. If it does not, then it is not. This mode of testing 
a Church does not require an inquiry into the former history 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 29 

of the organization; into the opinions or character of some 
man or men who once belonged to it. It does not inquire 
what the character of the association in its aggregate capacity 
was at some former period, fifty, a hundred, or a thousand 
years ago. It makes the inquiry now , and applies the rule 
to-day. 

When we come to identify and speak specifically of a 
scriptural Christian Church, we must designate the thing 
which the Scriptures designate as a Church, viz., a single 
congregation. What then comes of the question, supposing 
it to be raised, whether the Methodist Church, the Protestant 
Episcopal Church, or any other federate Church, is, or is not, 
a scriptural Church ? The Scriptures know of no such 
Church. A federate Church was not known in those days. 
The apostles never saw or heard of one. 

Whether all the separate Churches which compose the con 
federacy are scriptural Christian Churches is another ques¬ 
tion. They may or they may not be, according as each one 
may or may not be found to conform to the Scripture model. 
Ninety-nine may be scriptural, and the hundredth may be 
spurious. A federate Church, however, is commonly reck¬ 
oned to be apostolic, if its articles of religion follow the 
Scripture teachings, and its terms of confederation do not 
violate them. And then the separate Churches themselves 
are apostolic or otherwise, in so far as they do or do not con¬ 
form practically to these rules. 

The view here taken of separate scriptural Churches and of 
confederate Churches, may be objected to by some, or in the 
estimation of some it may be refuted. In either case I am 
perfectly content. I have only to fall back upon the Scrip¬ 
tures, and be consoled with the knowledge that they share 
with me in the same objections and refutation. We are 
looking at a Church as the apostles looked at a “Church.” 

The question, however, of the legality, propriety, or expe- 


30 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


diency of confederations of Churches, such as we now have 
in most of our ecclesiastical organizations, in the progress of 
Christianity subsequent to the days of the apostles, is quite 
a different thing from the fact we have been noticing. That 
much good has resulted therefrom cannot probably be ques¬ 
tioned. That there is any thing in the Scriptures, general or 
particular, which discountenances or discourages the system 
of federation among Churches, cannot for a moment be pre¬ 
tended. On the contrary, the New Testament gives encourage¬ 
ment to the idea. In truth we have, in the inspired history 
of the early Church, the incipient stages of confederation. It 
was not reduced, it was not attempted to be reduced, to a 
system. It came about naturally and spontaneously, as a 
mere incidental result of surrounding circumstances. True 
and proper federation, however, was neither necessary nor use¬ 
ful in the then condition of the Church, it all being under 
the general supervision of the apostles. 

Ecclesiastical confederation is the opposite of stringent or 
absolute Congregationalism; but is not inconsistent with the 
more moderate and rational Congregationalism which we find 
to have existed, to some considerable extent, in the apostolic 
Church. Modern Congregationalism, especially among some 
of the Baptist Churches, far overshoots its own target. It 
discovers that some of the apostolic Churches carried on their 
government pretty much in themselves, without in all things 
recognizing the necessity of a federative jurisdiction; and 
they then run headlong to the extreme of perfect congrega¬ 
tional independency, excluding absolutely all cooperation or 
interference on the part of other sister Churches or congre¬ 
gations; thereby establishing, in that single congregation, a 
complete and independent system of Christianity. 

This state of things was not only never practiced or thought 
of in the days of the apostles, but it has in itself nothing 
conducive to religious growth and prosperity. It has not 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


31 


worked well in practice, as compared with a moderate system 
of ecclesiastical confederation. 

The inquiry respecting an apostolic Church is oftentimes 
made, it is feared, without a proper understanding of the 
import of the question. The greatest sticklers for conformity 
to the apostolic Church, if they adhere closely to their own 
principles, will find themselves unable to discover such con¬ 
formity now on the face of the earth. They lose sight of a 
general conformity to apostolic principles, in the all-absorbing 
idea of a mere similarity in a few external practices which 
were merely incidental. This point, however, will be looked 
into more fully in a subsequent chapter. 

Here we have, for instance, a hundred or a thousand sepa¬ 
rate churches leagued together under the same general govern¬ 
ment. Now, it cannot be said that that confederacy is an 
apostolic Church, in the sense of an external conformity to 
the outward form of the early Church, in every particular; 
because the apostles knew of no such organized confederacy. 
But if we look for a more rational conformity in respect to 
religious principle , as believed and practiced by both, most 
probably we will be able to see it with all conceivable plainness. 

Still, when we look at a confederation, we cannot say that 
it is an apostolic Church. The several churches composing 
the confederacy may or may not be. That ninety-nine are 
apostolic, or scriptural, does not prove that the hundredth is 
not spurious. The organic confederacy, like many ecclesiasti¬ 
cal institutions—such as missions, itinerancy, annual conven¬ 
tions, and the like—is only an incidental arrangement of the 
churches, which might or might not have been adopted. It 
certainly does not destroy the proper identity of the several 
churches composing it. Confederacy of several churches does 
not make a Church • for if so, then the apostles never saw a 
Church, for they never saw a strict confederacy of churches. 
The confederacy is not a Church , in the apostolic sense. In 


32 THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 

modern parlance we call it a Church, which is all very right, 
of course. A word is the representation or signification of an 
idea. Eut when we use the word church in the strict apos¬ 
tolic sense—that is, to mean what the apostles meant when 
they said church — we cannot call a thousand churches a 
Church, any more properly because they are leagued together 
in confederacy, than because we find them in a state of dis¬ 
integration. Confederation does not make a Church. It is 
an incidental arrangement which churches sometimes enter 
into for their supposed mutual benefit; and if, on the one 
hand, it does not make a Church, on the other, it does not 
change or destroy the character which the several churches 
had, respectively, before. 

It is quite immaterial, also, to this argument, what may 
have been the occasion of such ecclesiastical confederation as 
we see now, or as we have seen in any former history of the 
Church. For the most part, in this day, they grow out of 
differences of opinion respecting prominent religious questions. 
Sometimes they have sprung from geographical or political 
considerations. All this is quite immaterial. 

Then, if this argument cannot be moved from the plain, 
simple basis upon which it rests, what comes Of all the argu¬ 
ments of the high-churchman, going to prove that his 
“ Church, ” meaning thereby his confederacy of churches, 
is strictly, in all things, an apostolic Church ? The shining 
of the sun is not more certain than that neither the apostles, nor 
any man who lived within several hundred years of their time, 
ever saw such a human association. They tell us that their 
Church—their confederacy—is apostolic in the sense that its 
external organization—its form—its official features—conform 
to the apostolic model. And to refute a thousand such argu¬ 
ments, made no matter how, we have only to remind them 
that not only did the apostles never see such a “ Church,” but 
they tell us repeatedly and plainly that what they call a Church 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


is a single congregation. Two congregations are two churches; 
four are four: a hundred are a hundred. Before any man 
can begin properly to argue that a confederate Church, re¬ 
garded as a confederacy, is an apostolic Church, he must point 
out the chapter and verse in the New Testament where the 
word church means a confederacy of churches. 

This argument of course applies to all confederate Churches. 
The Methodist Church, for instance, is not apostolic because 
of her confederate character; but because, and only because, 
of her conformity, in faith and practice , to the religious 
doctrines which the apostles held and taught. 

This is the test, and the only test of A Church. 


34 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


x 


CHAPTER II. 

A VIEW OF THE CHURCH TAKEN FROM THINGS EXCLUDED 

FROM THE SCRIPTURES. 

The preaching and teachings of Christ were made to and 
in the presence of Jews almost, if not quite, exclusively. 
These Jews were not only Jews in a national point of view, 
but also in a strict ecclesiastical sense. He was laying down 
the teachings of truth not only for those persons to whom he 
spake, but for all men in all time. If he did not speak to us, 
he provided suitable means for the communication of his 
words to us. He did not speak all his words of teaching 
directly. In regard to many of the things, he instructed his 
apostles, and they spoke and wrote them. And these words 
are all communicated to us in the same way, viz., in the 
Bible. 

Now, in these Bible teachings three things are to be care¬ 
fully noted: First, the things which are prescribed as neces¬ 
sary to be done; second, the things which are prohibited; 
and, third, things which are omitted to be spoken of at all. 
It is feared that this last point is either not noticed or very 
slightly passed over by many Bible readers. If so, it is to 
their disadvantage. 

There are many things which must have transpired in the 
early Church, and which must have been regarded as of con¬ 
siderable importance, and which are entirely omitted in the 
sacred writings. We cannot consider that these omissions 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


35 


were merely incidental or accidental, or that those things were 
left out of the sacred record merely because of their non-import¬ 
ance. They must have been purposely omitted. The question 
is not whether they were important to them, the people of that 
day; but the question which no doubt determined their inser¬ 
tion or non-insertion was, whether they were of importance to 
us, the people of after time. And not, either, whether we 
would deem them important, but whether, in the Divine 
judgment, we needed such instructions to enable us to carry 
on our religious or ecclesiastical affairs. 

We find in the Bible nothing like an outline of elementary 
instructions, in catechetical or other form, as used in the in¬ 
culcation of Christian faith upon catechumens. Something 
of this sort must have been used constantly in those times, 
but we have no mention of it. We have no form of prayer, 
except the Lord’s Prayer, which is rather an embodiment of 
the things to be prayed for. 

We have nothing as to the form of public worship. The 
Bible contains no ritual, or liturgy. We are not informed 
how public worship was commenced and carried through, or 
whether a particular form was always observed by the apostles, 
or under their general or special direction. We do not know 
how the Lord’s Supper was administered; what kind or quan¬ 
tity of bread, or wine, was used; and many other such like 
things. Neither have we any thing like a rubric or set of 
canons. 

We are informed that baptism was the initiatory rite by 
which the disciples were distinguished from other persons; 
but all that we know as to how baptism was performed, or 
what it was, is that they were baptized “ with waterhow 
much or how little water, or how it was applied, we are not 
informed. 

In regard to the ministers, we are informed that God calls 
men to preach; but in what particular way they become the 


86 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


ministers of certain particular Churches, we are not informed. 
They are initiated into the ministry by the laying on of 
hands ; but we have no instructions as to how this ceremony 
is performed. 

We learn that the Church of Christ was divided into 
several or many local Churches: that each Church had a 
government and exercised discipline; that the ministers re¬ 
ceived men into their Churches, and excluded the vicious 
therefrom; but what was their discipline, whether all the 
Churches had the same, what officers each separate Church 
had, or whether they had all the same, and what were pre¬ 
cisely, or even generally, the powers of these officers respect¬ 
ively, we have no certain inspired information. 

And not only have we, on these subjects, and many others 
that might be named, no inspired information, but such was 
the overruling providence of God—which is still more remark¬ 
able—in relation to these matters, that we have, on most of 
these points, no sort of historic information; and on none of 
them have we any that is even historically reliable. 

This, humanly speaking, is remarkable indeed. It is re¬ 
markable that these things do not come to us in the Bible; 
and it is still more remarkable that they have not been handed 
down outside of the Bible. Books were not then written as 
plenteously as they are now, but they were written, many of 
them, especially histories. We have histories in some abund¬ 
ance of these times, containing much information of what was 
passing. They come to us, and are now familiar in every 
library, as well authenticated as is the history of our American 
Bevolution, which is but a step behind us. 

And since we are here, let this idea be varied a little in a 
very important interrogative. 

Why is it ?—who has not asked himself the question a thou¬ 
sand times ?—why is it that profane historians have given us 
so little with regard to historic Christianity in apostolic times ? 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


37 


If we will but pause, and look carefully into tbis matter, 
it will appear sufficiently plain. There is a reason for all 
this. 

In the first place, we are obliged to conclude that the rea¬ 
son why these things—those at least which are above enume¬ 
rated—are not set forth in the Bible, is that they were pur¬ 
posely withheld by Divine inspiration and interference. And 
the reason for the withholding appears to be this: 

They are, in the very nature of the case, such things as do 
not require always to be performed in the same way. The 
mode of their performance is a mere incident, and does not, 
and cannot, seriously affect the thing itself. Many circum¬ 
stances respecting local condition, civil or political, or acci¬ 
dents or situations in which men might be placed, differences 
of sentiment which might preoccupy men’s minds, and a hun¬ 
dred such things, might call for or lead to their performance 
in different ways. But if the mode had been laid down in 
Scripture, it would most surely have been regarded, in many 
instances at least, as a Divinely prescribed mode, and its uni¬ 
form performance in that particular way, or attempts to do 
so, would oftentimes greatly impede the progress of practical 
Christianity. 

To confine act£ of Christian worship to some particular 
mode would be unphilosophical and preposterous. And to 
require ecclesiastical things to be done in some prescribed 
mode would be equally unmeaning. There can be no essen¬ 
tial virtue in a mode. A mode is not a thing ; and it is rank 
nonsense to say that essential virtue can attach to any thing 
that is not a thing. 

What does God require of man? To do modes? The 
idea is no idea at all. The notion is nonsense. God requires 
men to do things ; and to abstain from doing things, and 
things only. He requires them to believe things —true things, 
and nothing else. Modes, in the very nature of the case, 


38 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


refer to and are governed by taste and circumstances. They 
are not subjects of control and regulation by essential virtue. 
Modes are essentially matters of taste and prudence, to be 
regulated by circumstances, as they incidentally arise. A lame 
man may walk to church, but he does so in a very different 
mode from other men. No two men walk in precisely the 
same mode. Preachers are required to preach, and to preach 
certain things ; but certainly they are not required to preach 
in any prescribed mode; for if so, then not more than one 
man preaches right, for no two men preach in the same mode 
precisely. 

It is utterly unphilosophic—nay, it is preposterous, to sup¬ 
pose that God prescribes and fixes a mere mode. The idea 
of attaching essential virtue to a mere mode, is the very 
essence of superstition. Here is the mark of vital distinction 
between worship and superstition. 

The idea of attaching essential virtue to modes of adminis¬ 
tering the ordinances of baptism or the Lord’s Supper: to the 
particular kinds of worship to be performed, or to the govern¬ 
ment of churches, arises from very superficial thinking: 
inclines the mind towards superstition and bigotry, and leads 
it to shadows rather than substances. 

Still, notwithstanding these plain philosophic considera¬ 
tions, the world is now, and has ever been, and will most likely 
continue to be, until the dawn at least of millennial illumina¬ 
tion, pretty much in the condition in which Paul found 
Athens—“too superstitious.” And hence, if the modes of 
doing things—of administering the sacraments, performing 
acts of worship, attaching ministers to particular churches, 
arranging the government of churches, administering the 
government of churches, and the like—had been noted, men 
would have given them undue importance, and there would 
have been a continual strain amongst thousands and millions 
to conform to what they would consider a Divine mode. 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


89 


Hence these things are purposely and wisely excluded. 
And hence, too, the overruling providence of God remarkably 
controlled this matter, in regard even to uninspired historians. 
For such is the idolatrous and superstitious tendency of the 
world, even of Christians themselves, too often, that authentic 
historic accounts of these things would also have been 
pernicious. 

The world is left, therefore, in regard to these things, and 
the Church placed, in a condition where true wisdom and 
sound discretion would direct. 

The teachings of God’s word, then, in regard to these 
modes, manners, ways, of doing things, is, that the things 
are to be done; but the mode may change with times, ages, 
places, circumstances, as sound judgment and pious intention 
may dictate. 

Thus it is that we gather lessons of incalculable importance 
by carefully considering particular things which are not in the 
Scriptures, as well as from things which are. 


40 


TIIE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


CHAPTER III. 

ECCLESIASTICAL ORGANISM. 

The Christian religion and the Christian Church are very 
different and distinct things. Religion is the faith which 
Christian men have. A Church is an association of Christian 
people. 

A community , or asssociation, or society, necessarily im¬ 
plies the idea of order, organization, officers, and laws; and, 
consequently, of government. These laws must recognize 
the members of the community, and distinguish them from 
other persons who are not members. 

Religion was undeniably designed to be social. It is, in its 
very nature, of a social character and tendency. The Lord 
not only promised to be with and in his true disciples, per¬ 
sonally; he also promised to be with “two or three” who 
were “ met together” in his name. 

It was evidently not the design of Jesus Christ, in intro¬ 
ducing Christianity into the world, that it should be a mere 
system of truths, to be believed by, and of conduct to be 
enjoined upon, individual persons, like philosophy or morals; 
in regard to which each person acts independently by and for 
himself. But the design was to keep up a social community, 
or society, of such believers, who should be distinguished, as 
such, from the rest of mankind, and occupy among their 
fellow-men the conspicuous position of a Church of Christ 
upon earth. 



THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


41 


It seems essential to a Christian society, or association—as 
to any other society or association—that it have laws or by¬ 
laws, either independent, or subordinate to a supreme law 
or constitution, which shall enjoin and prohibit certain things, 
and prescribe some kind of penalties in case of their infraction. 

But the existence or foundation of a society, or community, 
or association of men—either of Christians as such, or of any 
other class or description of men, as such—does not necessarily 
imply that upon their associating or communing with each 
other, in any given character or capacity, they must institute 
or organize a new government, not known to the individual 
persons before, or under which they had not been associated 
before, in some character differing from that of their present 
association. 

Let me illustrate : For a society of Christians, acting under 
a set of laws and with a set of officers, adapted to their con¬ 
dition, duties, and purposes as Christians, to form themselves 
into a company of navigators, or agriculturalists, would seem 
to imply the necessity of making some very new and different 
laws from those they had before. For the laws which would 
regulate and keep them together in a wholesome manner as 
Christians , would not be at all likely to give them many very 
important directions about sailing over the seas, or of plant¬ 
ing and harvesting. 

But for the same society of Christians, acting under the 
same laws, and with the same kind of officers, to modify their 
religion materially and become Universalists, for instance, does 
not, in the. same manner, necessarily require the making of 
a new set of laws; for the laws and the kind of officers under 
which they were associated as Christians, would perhaps 
answer very well for them as Universalists. I mean, of 
course, their laws respecting their external association , and 
not those respecting their religion. Might not a company of 
Christians and a company of Universalists have the same kind 




42 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


of municipal laws, and pretty much, the same kind of munici¬ 
pal officers ? 

Or suppose in some particular state or country, the people, 
living in an isolated condition, profess some particular reli¬ 
gion, in the observance and daily practice of which they are 
very strict and uniform; say it is Universalism, or Judaism. 
One or two Christian missionaries go among them and preach, 
and teach that their religious faith is erroneous—that Chris¬ 
tianity, faith in Jesus Christ as a personal Saviour, is the only 
true religion—and they make some converts. The Christian 
preachers do not discover any thing materially wrong in the 
form of government —the ecclesiastical government, which 
they find in use among these religionists : they meet for wor¬ 
ship every Sabbath day, have orderly preaching, and are quite 
sufficiently formal in their modes of worship. They regularly 
receive men into, and exclude them from, their communion, 
making moral conduct and faith in their religious tenets the 
tests of membership. Upon the whole, considering the pecu¬ 
liar local, civil, and political condition of these people, their 
habits, customs, character, etc., they see nothing wrong, very 
materially wrong—in their form of ecclesiastical government; 
though in other circumstances, perhaps, it might be consider¬ 
ably improved. 

Now, what would these Christian ministers do with these 
people in regard to their form of Church government 
merely? Would a wise and prudent forecast dictate that 
they should do any thing, materially changing their form of 
Church government? Would they not rather say to them¬ 
selves, “ Their form of Church government is not materially 
objectionable as it is. They have about the right number 
and kind of officers to govern their several assemblies or 
Churches: their officers are brought into office in a very 
proper way : the general administration of their ecclesiasti¬ 
cal matters is not objectionable: their laws are wholesome, 



THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


43 


and would not, perhaps, he bettered by being changed : we 
will not interfere at all in these things, but let matters pro¬ 
ceed in the usual way, so far as our converts are concerned. 
We will explain to the converts the necessity of observing 
baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and let their form of govern¬ 
ment alone.” 

Would any thing be more natural or more prudent than 
such a course as this ? 

But let us vary the case a little. 

Suppose that these ministers, who thus teach Christianity 
among these people, had never themselves heard or known of 
a Christian Church. The thing is altogether supposable. 
They are themselves only two of the same people; have, with 
their fellows around them, been all along of the same religion 
as the rest; have participated every day from boyhood with 
their countrymen in the Church government to which they 
are all accustomed, and have with them believed in the same 
religion, Judaism or Universalism, or whatever false religion 
we may suppose it to be. But they have recently been taught 
the true Christian faith, by direct and immediate miraculous 
revelation from God. And in pursuance of the direct and 
immediate commands of God, they set about preaching and 
teaching the Christian faith, having renounced their Univer¬ 
salism, and exhort others to do so likewise. 

I ask, Is there not now far less probability than in the for¬ 
mer case, that they will do or teach any thing about Church 
government with the view of annulling the then existing 
government, and of instituting a neio government ? Can a 
reason be conceived why they should attempt to do so ? Is 
there a motive that would point to such a course? Would 
any thing be gained to religion thereby ? or would converts 
to the true faith be more likely to come in, when, in addition 
to changing their religious belief, they are also required to 
renounce their form of government, which is confessedly 



44 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


unobjectionable, and in which they and their fathers have 
lived, and, as they think, prospered so long? Why would 
they seek to change the mere form of Church government ? 

Let the reader note these things, and pass on. 

I do not know that there was ever any difference of belief 
among Christians as to whether Jesus Christ was truly and 
properly the Author and Founder of the Christian Church as 
well as the Christian religion. This is never objected to; and it 
is as readily assented to on all hands, except perhaps in Roman¬ 
ism and high Puseyism, that Christ is still the proper Head of 
the Church, without any vicegerent on earth. This, however, 
is in regard to the authorship, the founding and the headship 
of the Church. 

But the original organization of the Church is a somewhat 
different thing. What do we mean by the organization of 
the Church in the first instance ? Is there any difference 
between the organization of the Church , and the organization 
of the government of the Church ? Do we not mean the 
organization of the government of the Church, when we 
speak of the organization of the Church ? And what is 
meant by organizing a Church government, or any other 
government ? It is the arranging and prescribing its form of 
government: that it shall have such and such laws of external 
association, that there shall be such and such officers, with 
such and such powers, and such and such shall be the condi¬ 
tions of membership in the government; and these conditions 
shall be inquired into so and so. Can any thing less than 
all this be regarded as the organization of any government ? 
Are not these prescriptions, and nothing less than all these 
prescriptions, the acts which make up the organizing ? Can 
the idea of organizing a government be whittled down below 
this ? 

Now, how can it be said, from reading the Scriptures, that 
Jesus Christ organized a Church government, by those who 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 45 

at the same time admit that the Scriptures contain no form 
of Church government ? They of course cannot mean what 
they say. 

Jesus Christ did not organize a Church government; that 
is to say, he did not prescribe that Christians—either those 
then with him in Palestine or elsewhere, or Christians in all 
after time—should have a government with precisely such 
and such officers, with these and those powers, and with these 
and those laws. He did not organize the Christian Church. 

The Saviour taught his followers and disciples, so far as we 
are informed, one thing, and one only: viz., religion. He 
said nothing to them particularly on the subject of Church 
government, either directly or through his apostles. We are 
told once or twice, in a very general and incidental manner— 
or rather, reference is made to the fact, existent or in pros¬ 
pect—that the Church was to be well ordered, well officered, 
well governed; but his teachings were exclusively on the 
subjects of religion and ethics. 

We may expect to see the simple philosophy and reason¬ 
ableness of this course, when we come to examine more par¬ 
ticularly into the manner in which the Christian Church 
actually came into an organic form; and we must not fail to 
remember that in all these examinations the Scriptures alone 
are our guide. 

We will refer briefly to such few passages of the New Tes¬ 
tament as are by some supposed to point to the organization 
of the Church; though really it can scarcely be said that the 
New Testament is relied upon by any in support of the hypo¬ 
thesis in question. The conclusion seems to be picked up 
without a thought. Men seem to think that because Jesus 
Christ is the Founder of the Christian religion, and that he 
prescribed the 'principles of Church government in the sense 
in which he expresses himself, that he therefore of course 
organized Christians into an external association. 



46 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


Matt. xvi. 18: “Thou art Peter; and upon this rock I 
will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail 
against it.” 

The Romanists contend that in this passage the term this 
rock means Peter, and therefore Peter is the rightful head of 
the Church; and, supposing this to be the correct reading, it 
only says that in some way Peter is to be the foundation of 
the Church. But Peter is dead long since: nothing is said 
about the organization of the Church. We are not told what 
sort of government or what officers it is to have. Peter 
may, in some way, be the foundation of the Church, and yet 
it may be organized in any one of a hundred different ways; 
that is, it may have any one of a hundred different kinds of 
government. 

But biblical Christendom has generally connected the 
words this rock , in the above passage, with the great declara¬ 
tion which Peter had that instant made, and to which the 
Lord was replying. The Lord asked the disciples collectively 
—“ But whom say ye that I am ?” and Peter answered, on 
behalf of himself and fellow-disciples, “ Thou art the 
Christ, the Son of the living God.” 

Here seems to be a rational foundation, or “rock” on 
which to found a great principle of faith for mankind. It is 
the one only pillar on which the Christian religion rests. But 
it tells us nothing whatever about the organization of a Church 
into a government. It tells us nothing whatever as to what 
particular officers the Church is to have, what are to be their 
functions, or any thing relative to its form of government. 
Christ may be the Son of the living God, and this great truth 
may be properly called a “rock” upon which the Church 
shall rest for ever; and yet the Church may have any con¬ 
ceivable form of government—any one of a hundred different 
forms—that will comport with good order and natural har¬ 
mony. 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


47 


We are inquiring now, not into the principles of the 
Church—what is to be its faith—whether Christ or Peter is 
to be its head; but we are inquiring respecting the external 
organization of living Christians into a Church or Churches, 
with a particular form of government; and how the Church 
came to have the particular kinds of government which it has. 

Acts xv. 6 : “ The apostles and elders came together for to 
consider of this matter.” Yer. 28 : “ They wrote letters by them 
after this manner: The apostles, and elders, and brethren, 
send greeting unto the brethren which are of the Gentiles in 
Antioch, and Syria, and Cilicia.” Chapter xx. 28 : “ Take 
heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock over the 
which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the 
Church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.” 
Eph. iv. 11: “He gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; 
and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for 
the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, 
for the edifying of the body of Christ.” 

Some other such passages might be quoted, but they say 
not one word on the subject of the organization of the Church 
—what form of government if is to have. On this point the 
Bible is silent. 


48 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


CHAPTER IV. 

ECCLESIASTICAL ORGANISM CONTINUED. 

A late writer, in attempting to prove that Ms form of 
Church government is the only proper and scriptural form, 
remarks as follows: 

“ The origin of the Church (meaning its external organiza¬ 
tion) dates from the commencement of Christ’s public minis¬ 
try. This is proved by the early institution and administration 
of Christian baptism.” 

He then goes on to quote from John iii. 22 : a After these 
things, Jesus came with his disciples into the land of Judea, 
and there he abode with them, and baptized.” “ The follow¬ 
ers of Christ are here spoken of,” he says, “as his disciples. 
They are also spoken of as a society by themselves. There 
he abode with his disciples, not with others. The title of 
disciples marks their acknowledgment of him as their master 
and teacher, and their submission to his authority.” 

This reasoning is defective from the consideration that 
baptism distinguishes men only as the disciples of Christ; 
whereas, otherwise, they arc not so discipled, or do not so 
disciple themselves. Baptism is by no means identical with 
an outward external association in Church membership. It 
is the initiatory rite by which men go into the Church, or in 
virtue of which they acquire an external associate membership 
with others in the Church. But still, men do not go into 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


49 


this external association of men, simply because of their bap¬ 
tism, as a mere historic fact ; for we know that many persons 
who are baptized are not entitled to Church membership, and 
cannot and do not obtain it here amongst us every day. 
Baptism lays the man who receives it under a solemn cove¬ 
nant with Christ; but other men are not bound by his 
pledges—Christ is not bound by his pledges. If baptism 
were identical with Church membership, then a baptized per¬ 
son could never be excluded from the Church. This idea is 
the foundation-error that gives rise and support to the heresy 
of baptismal regeneration. 

The same writer above quoted—Sawyer on 11 Organic Chris¬ 
tianity’ ’—says on the next page, 19 : 

“It appears, therefore, that our Lord gained numerous 
followers in the early part of his ministry, and that he orga¬ 
nized them into a religious society, acknowledging himself as 
its head, and had them baptized.” 

It is very true that he gained numerous followers in the 
early part of his ministry; but there is no proof whatever, in 
the Bible or out of it, that he u organized them into a religi¬ 
ous society,” separate and apart, and distinguished from 
the “ religious society” of which both he and they were 
already all members. No one can conceive of the slightest 
necessity for his doing so. But, on the contrary, such a 
course would have tended greatly to frustrate his whole 
scheme. 

Both he and his disciples, and those Jews who were not his 
disciples, were already regular members of an existing 
Church. Now, for him to have organized, alongside of this, 
and in opposition to it, another and different association, 
would imply two things: first, that the first was defective, 
and, secondly, that sound policy at that time dictated an open 
and formal opposition to it in this way. 

On the contrary, we expect to see, as we pass on, that 
3 



50 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


Christ discovered no such objections to the then existing out¬ 
ward organization of Church members as in his judgment 
called for an outward and formal opposition to it at that 
period. 

Again, it is supposed by some that the form for Church 
government is set forth in Matt, xviii. 15—17 : 11 Moreover, 

if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his 
fault between thee and him alone : if he shall hear thee, thou 
hast gained thy brother. But if he will not hear thee, then 
take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or 
three witnesses every word may be established. And if he 
shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the Church; but if he 
neglect to hear the Church, let him be unto thee as a heathen 
man and a publican.” 

u This,” it is said, u so far as discipline is concerned, is the 
government of the people by the people. The congregation 
is the Church court, to which difficulties among the member¬ 
ship are to be brought; and not the Church court only, but 
the supreme Church court , for the final decision of cases.” 

That u the Church” is to decide, primarily and finally, all 
cases to be decided, nobody disputes. But this does not say 
how the Church will proceed in such adjudication. It may 
proceed in any given way in which a government, a congrega¬ 
tion, or a people may perform judicial and executive acts. 
It no more follows that “the congregation is the Church 
court,” than that one man, by direction of the congregation, 
is to be the u Church court.” 

The only essential difference between a mob and a regularly 
ordered government is this : the former act in mass, all being 
precisely equal, so that there is no subordination or insubordi¬ 
nation, and the latter assigns the specific duties of legislation, 
judicature, and executive, which three things make up the 
entire function of government, to certain officers, as specific 
separate functions or duties. For these duties to be common 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


51 


among the whole membership of the government, destroys the 
very idea or character of a government, and reduces the 
whole membership thereof to a mob. 

We conclude, further, that Jesus Christ did not organize 
Christians into a Church government, from the considerations, 
first, that he never in his whole life intimated, so far as we 
know, that there was any thing in the least degree objection¬ 
able in the then existing Church government among the Jews. 
And, secondly, that he himself lived and died a regular 
member of the then existing ecclesiastical organization. 

He was born iu the Jewish Church, of Jewish parents. At 
the eighth day of his life he was solemnly and regularly 
initiated into the Church personally, as a member thereof. At 
his thirtieth year—the legal age according to the rules of the 
Church—he was, in the usual way, regularly inducted into 
its ministry, and became a preacher in the Jewish Church. 
He thus officiated in its ministry three years, when he was 
charged with dereliction and heresy; and for this alleged 
crime he was crucified. He strictly conformed to the govern¬ 
ment of the Church during his whole life; and if the above 
declaration, that he never intimated that there was any thing 
wrong, any thing that required reform in the mode of govern¬ 
ment of the then existing Church, be affirmed to be errone¬ 
ous, it is for those who allege the error to point it out. 

So far as we know, he was as well content with the form of 
government which he found and which he left in the Jewish 
Church, as he was with their dress, or civil jurisprudence, or 
any other custom prevailing among them. 

The idea that he set up an ecclesiastical government in 
opposition to or different from the Church polity of the day, 
is erroneous, is utterly without foundation in Bible history, or 
any other history, and is equally so in the genius, and spirit, 
and principles of the Christian religion. 

Mr. Horne, in commenting on Luke iv. 16-22, remarks: 



52 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


<( From this passage we learn that when Jesus Christ came to 
Nazareth, his own city, he was called out as a member of that 
synagogue to read,” etc. (Introduction, vol. ii., p. 106.) 

Just so. He was a member of the synagogue, in the 
town where he lived. In the above passage it is said that his 
custom was to go into the synagogue to read and preach on 
the Sabbath day. Nothing is more familiar in the life of 
Jesus Christ than this, that he habitually and regularly 
taught in the Jewish synagogues. And when we come to 
speak more particularly of the synagogue-worship, we shall 
see that he not only taught in their synagogues, but that he 
performed his regular worship there, and filled a regular office 
in the services of the Sabbath, conforming to all the rules 
thereof as he found them established. He did not seek to 
alter them. 

And if Christians were not organized into a separate eccle¬ 
siastical polity or Church by Jesus Christ, neither was it done, 
as a specific measure, by the apostles. 

It has already been shown that the term Church is some¬ 
times used in the Scriptures, and is yet, to denote the entire 
mass of believers on earth. This is of course irrespective 
and totally exclusive of the idea of organization. That sense 
of the term does not refer to or denote Christians organized 
into societies, or compact together in any way. It refers to 
true believers wherever found, in or out of any communions 
—in or out of Christendom. In this sense the Church may, 
with great propriety, be spoken of from the time the first 
disciples followed Jesus, to the present. And it is in this 
sense, let it be particularly remarked, that the term is used 
when we say that Christ is its Founder or Head. 

Now, on the ascension of the Saviour, the Church could 
only be spoken of as actually existing, in this sense. It 
existed in this way: The eleven disciples or apostles believed 
the important truths which their Master taught them. They 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


53 


were associated together upon terms of perfect equality, de¬ 
termined to carry out liis commands, and to go and preach 
the doctrines he taught them, and the truth of his resurrec¬ 
tion. There were a few other persons, and, so far as we know, 
hut a few, who believed the truth as taught by Jesus, and 
there were still others somewhat favorably inclined towards 
these doctrines. Several women also deeply sympathized in 
the late astounding tragedy, and felt warmly attached to these 
interests. 

But we must remember that all these persons, Christ and 
all, were Jews—regular members of the Church. All these 
things took place in the Jewish Church. The three years' 
preaching of Christ—the complaints of him—the trial—the 
crucifixion—all took place in the then existing Church, among 
the regular members thereof. 

But neither the teaching nor preaching of Christ, nor any 
thing in any way connected therewith, had any relation to the 
'polity of the Church. Nothing of this sort was discussed. 
Nobody was dissatisfied with the government of the Church, 
much less with its form. Considerations respecting the form 
of their Church government, or even the manner of its ad¬ 
ministration, were as foreign to these innovations and difficul¬ 
ties as were those respecting the geography of the land they 
lived in. 

The apostles were on an equality among themselves, and 
therefore they did not compose an organized society. For, if 
organized into a society, different positions would be assigned 
respectively to different persons; for this is what we mean by 
a society being organized, in contradistinction to a state of 
disintegration. 

The apostles immediately set about preaching the gospel, 
not for the formation of Churches, for this is not the gospel, 
but for the propagation of the religious faith they had im¬ 
bibed. They were already formed into Churches. They 


54 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


were all of them already members of the Church, preachers 
and people. 

It is not pretended but that the Saviour did distinctly 
recognize the prospective fact that Christians would not only 
be distinguished as such, but that they would be organized into 
societies, separate and distinct from the then existing Church, 
and exercise ecclesiastical discipline among themselves for 
their advantage and protection. This is clearly seen in the 
disciplinary power recognized in the Church in Matt, xviii. 
17 : “And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the 
Church.” This separate jurisdiction was a thing to be natu¬ 
rally looked for. In the nature of the case, it could scarcely 
be prevented. All that I say is, that neither the Saviour nor 
his apostles did, at any time, set about and organize a Chris¬ 
tian Church, different from, distinct from, and in opposition to, 
the then existing Church of the Jews. The Church did not 
originate in such a way. 

It is said that if Christ and his apostles, one or both of 
them, founded a Church, in the sense of an external compact, 
society, or company of Christians, it must have had rules, 
regulations, officers, and such other characteristics as naturally 
pertain to a society; and the administration of these rules 
must have been exclusively in the hands of the disciples, 
and not in any sense in the hands of Jews. 

All of which is very true. 

For the disciples, or converted Jews, to keep along in eccle¬ 
siastical practice and polity, in the same course they had 
pursued before they became disciples, does not by any means 
involve the necessity, or in the slightest measure suppose, 
that Jews who were not converted must participate in the 
government of their Churches. Two Churches mav now have 
the same form of government without any such interference. 

There cannot be a Church without laws, officers, and gov* 
ernment. This is very true. Yet many persons fail to notice 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


55 


that these laics, officers, and government, do not apply to the 
Christian Church in general, but to each separate Church in 
particular. When were there any such officers, out of Rom¬ 
ish or other High Church superstitions, other than the apos¬ 
tles ? When were there laws, or a government, of the Church, 
generally ? These things belong not to the Church of Christ 
generally, but to the separate Churches particularly and spe¬ 
cifically. 

Organization, therefore, which is but another name for 
laws, officers, and government, set a moving in proper order, 
pertains not to the Church of Christ in general, but to each 
of the particular Churches respectively considered. 

The early Christians, in carrying on their ecclesiastical 
government—the same government, that is, the same form of 
government, they had before they became Christians—were 
by no means precluded from introducing new rules and regu¬ 
lations, from time to time, as their wants and peculiar neces¬ 
sities demanded. The introducing of new rules occasionally, 
or frequently, is not by any means the organization of a new 
government. Do not all governments annul old rules and 
enact new ones at pleasure ? In this respect, the early 
Churches, no doubt, did as the later ones uniformly do. 

The only religion known in Palestine before Christ began 
to teach was Judaism; and the only form of Church govern¬ 
ment was that of the sjnagogue. After Christ began to teach, 
and after the disciples rallied subsequent to his resurrection, 
a sect of Jews were found in the Church who believed that 
Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God. They be¬ 
lieved the truths he taught, and that he rose from the dead. 
The bonds which bound them together, and which distin¬ 
guished them from other Jews who did not thus believe, were 
naturally those of religious love and affection, and the warm 
feelings of faith inspired by their hope in Christ. The num- 


56 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


ber of believers in the new religion increased rapidly, as the 
apostles preached, and as the other disciples prayed, exhorted, 
and lived holy. 

Now, the question is, How did these Christians pass from a 
state of individual singleness and independence into a state 
of organized societies or Churches ? The Saviour had given 
them no instructions on the subject, so far as we know, nor is 
there any natural affinity between religion and such organiza¬ 
tions. 

Experience teaches us that Church organization and disci¬ 
pline are greatly subsidiary to religion, though they no more 
form a part of it than do houses to preach in, or printed 
Bibles to read. The religion which Christ taught, however, 
was a general guide to men in all the affairs of life; but it no 
more pointed out to them the particular things to be done in 
or under a system of polity which would relate to them in 
their personal association as Christians, than that which would 
relate to them as men of science, as mechanics, or as citizens 
of a state. For a Christian is a Christian irrespective of the 
mere government of his Church. 

Government , no matter to what particular state or condi¬ 
tion of men it may relate, is a thing as essentially different 
from religion as from science or industry. 

The Jewish Church polity was connected somewhat with 
the civil government under which they lived. Those Chris¬ 
tians, as well as their fellow-Jews, were under the Homan 
government, and from it they could, as Christians, hope for 
no more protection or aid than from the Jews, who were not 
Christians. 

Superficial thinkers might suppose that, under these cir¬ 
cumstances, it would be necessary for wise heads to get to¬ 
gether and plan and frame out a system of government suited 
to their condition j and that the plan should in some way 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


57 


become established among them as a fixed and settled system 
of ecclesiastical government. But to this there appear sev¬ 
eral objections : 

1st. It would have been regarded as insubordinate to the 
Roman government, and in conflict therewith. The Jews 
were in colonial vassalage to the Romans. The Romans, 
however, permitted them to enjoy their own religion, and 
keep up their own rites of worship and Church discipline. 
But every thing must be done under the strict eye and super¬ 
vision of Roman officers. Their public worship could not be 
conducted among themselves exclusively; it required the 
presence of a civil officer. 

“For the maintenance of good order, there were in every 
synagogue certain officers, whose business it was to see 
that all duties of religion were decently performed therein.” 
Horne’s Introduction , vol. ii., p. 104. 

The Romans were exceedingly jealous of the power of the 
Jews, and kept a strict eye over all their public and private 
actions. The King of the Jews, in securing to them this 
religious privilege, of course acted under the strict authority 
of the emperor and senate, and permitted them to go not an 
inch farther than his instructions allowed. 

Now, suppose a new sect of the Jews, which the followers 
of Christ really were, had set up a new ecclesiastical organi¬ 
zation, distinct and different from the Jewish Church polity; 
the one was authorized, or at least, legally and authoritatively 
suffered, by the Roman government; and the other unauthor¬ 
ized, and therefore strictly inhibited. The inevitable conse¬ 
quence would have been to arouse the sleepless jealousy of 
the Roman government, and the new Church organization 
would have been crushed in a moment. This difficulty was 
great enough as it was, when the believers in Christ merely 
asserted a religious faith different from that which pre¬ 
vailed generally among Jews. But to have set up a rival 


58 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


Church organization, unknown to and unauthorized by eithei 
Jewish or Roman authority, in a country and time when 
Church government and civil government were always con¬ 
nected with each other, would have been madness and folly 
in the extreme. 

One of the chief reasons, no doubt, if not the only reason, 
why the Saviour was so silent and cautious in asserting his 
supreme Divine headship over the Church, was, that he might 
not arouse the political vigilance and fears of the Romans. 
So he carefully avoided an open, and bold, and outspoken 
assertion of these truths. He said enough to give his imme¬ 
diate followers distinctly to understand the truth; but he said 
it privately, and enjoined privacy on those to whom he spoke, 
lest an incautious proclamation of the truth would call down 
the vengeance of a powerful opponent upon his defenceless 
followers. 

2d. Another reason why the followers of the. Saviour could 
not set up a distinct ecclesiastical organization, which was to 
be a model for Church government among Christians in all 
future time, was, that they could not possibly know that the 
best form of Church government for them, in the peculiar 
circumstances which then surrounded them, would also be the 
most expedient for Christians in all the future ages of the 
world, and in all the possible circumstances in which man¬ 
kind might be found in all time to come. This consideration 
will be spread out more amply before the reader at a more 
appropriate time in a future chapter. 

3d. Such a course of proceeding was by no means neces¬ 
sary, or useful, or called for, by the circumstances they were 
in. To show necessity for a change in ecclesiastical polity, 
implies the necessity of showing that the existing polity is 
unhealthful to religious growth and extension. It must be 
asked, then, Was the existing Church government of the 
Jews a bad one? Was it inconsistent with true Christianity? 


TIIE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


59 


Was it disadvantageous to the spread of true religion ? To 
assert that it was, involves the necessity of pointing out, in 
the New Testament Scriptures, the place where such a state¬ 
ment or intimation is made. And therefore, it is unhesitat¬ 
ingly asserted, it requires that which is impossible. The 
truth is, that the form of Church government and synagogue- 
worship which prevailed among the Jews in Palestine, in the 
time of Christ, was not in that age radically changed. Nor 
has it been, in truth, materially altered to this day. The 
great business of the apostles was to propagate the true faith. 
The matter of Church government, what form it should have, 
seems not to have entered into their minds, as a matter of 
primary importance. 

When or where did they do or say or teach any thing in 
favor of any one particular form of Church government, in 
contradistinction to any other particular form ? 

It must be remembered that mere form , abstractly consid¬ 
ered, bears the same relation to government as to any thing 
else. A form is not a thing. A little paint, or a piece of 
stone, or wood, may represent the form of a man, as well as 
living flesh, and bones, and muscles. A fool may have as 
good a form as a philosopher. At the same time, however, 
you cannot have a good man, or a good machine, or a good 
government, without having, at least, a tolerably suitable form. 


GO 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


CHAPTER V. 

ORIGIN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 

It roust be understood that Christ not only directed those 
persons with whom he conversed to be religious, and to trust 
in him as their Saviour, but he directed that there should be 
a perpetual and successive religion in all time to come, and 
among all people. And hence, his directions were that the 
most vigorous efforts should always be made, by all Christian 
people, to extend this religion, and urge and push it forward, 
amidst no matter what difficulties and discouragements; and 
that the best means should always be adopted for the most 
speedy and successful prosecution of the enterprise. 

Now, it is a fundamental principle in government, that a 
grant or investiture of authority to do any particular thing, 
implies, also, power to do all such intermediate things as may 
be antecedently or incidentally necessary to the proper doing 
or successful prosecution of the thing empowered or directed 
to be done. It was, therefore, clearly implied, if not ex¬ 
pressed, that Christians, in prosecuting the business of reli¬ 
gion, w T ere to form themselves into Churches, or separate 
associations, larger or smaller, with these, those, or the other 
regulations; and to do all other things that might be necessary, 
from time to time, which would be best calculated to promote 
a healthy extension of religion. Then, although religion 
might be prosecuted and extended without Churches, disci 
pline, or ecclesiastical law, yet that would be, evidently, a very 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


61 


slow, uncertain, and inconvenient mode of spreading religion 
throughout and over the world. 

And hence, what do we find the facts to be as to the course 
pursued by the early disciples in their affiliation and public 
religious course ? Why, they did such things , from time to 
time, as appeared clearly and naturally useful or necessary 
for both the general and particular interests of the cause they 
were engaged in. Very few of the great religious movements 
of Christendom, from first to last, were specifically directed. 
Christ did not direct that his sayings, and teachings, and his¬ 
tory, with the other inspired writings, should be gathered 
together, and bound in one book; and yet this became ob¬ 
viously necessary or useful, and therefore the disciples did it. 
He did not direct that it should be printed and circulated 
over the world; and yet this was done, because it became 
apparently necessary. He did not direct that religion should 
be taught by the writing and circulation of books; yet this 
has, in like manner, been done. He did not, perhaps, direct 
that the apostles should write letters of instruction and encour¬ 
agement to different Churches, or that they should do many 
other particular things which common sense and common 
circumstances from time to time directed and called for. 

It was enough for him to direct that the Christian faith 
should be propagated, extended, taught, made universal. He 
directed that persons who were counted or recognized among 
believers, and who should be guilty of and persist in sin, 
should no longer be so counted or reckoned. But he did not 
direct particularly that courts of judicature should be insti¬ 
tuted to inquire into and determine upon such facts, and exe¬ 
cute such decisions. This, however, was done, because it 
became necessary, in order to arrive at the end to which his 
general instructions looked. He did not direct that such be¬ 
lievers as lived in a particular town or neighborhood should 
be specially associated together in compact with special persons 


62 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


to exercise control in that particular association, over and 
above the common association which he directed should sub¬ 
sist among all Christians. And yet this was always done, 
because the better prosecution of the grand design rendered 
it obviously necessary or expedient. He did not direct that 
those whom he charged with the ministry of the gospel should 
exercise control and authority among Christians where they 
lived and statedly ministered, beyond that degree of control 
which seems rationally to pertain to pastoral care and over¬ 
sight. But, inasmuch as it became expedient and proper, in 
the opinion of the wisest and best Christians, that such per¬ 
sons should be invested with such authority rather than other 
persons, to such an extent as was deemed best, it was accord¬ 
ingly done. He did not direct that some particular duties 
belonging to the ministry of the gospel should be performed 
by certain ministers, and that certain other duties should be 
assigned to certain other ministers. Yet, in the prosecution 
of the work, this division of labor became expedient, in the 
belief of the wisest and best men, and therefore it was done. 
He did not direct that some ministers should superintend and 
oversee the labor and ministry of others; and yet, in the 
progress of the practical labors of Christianity, this is some¬ 
times, if indeed not, in some way, always, to some extent, 
deemed necessary or useful, and hence is done. 

Thus we see that what we call Churches —Christians organ¬ 
ized into societies, and hence Church government—are fea¬ 
tures in the practical working of Christianity which have 
grown out of expediency, or the apparent or supposed necessity 
of the case. They are not religion: they are not Christian¬ 
ity : they are only instruments or means of the better and 
more successful extension of Christianity over the world. 

When the apostles began to preach, converts gathered 
around them. The cohesive influence of love to Christ and 
to each other, brought them into the most intimate associa- 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


63 


tion. The dangers and persecutions to which they were ex¬ 
posed, cemented them still closer. Public worship—the 
assembling themselves together once a week, viz., on Sunday 
—was no new thing to them. They had been accustomed to 
it all their lives. The only change with them was, that now 
they believed in Christ. Their pursuit was religion —the 
inculcating and enjoyment of the truths which they had 
learned from Christ. But as to the external mode and form 
by which they would cohere and unite in public association, 
no' special arrangements were made about that; and they 
naturally fell into, or, rather, kept along in, their accustomed 
mode of synagogue-worship. But little change was found 
necessary to be made; and, in fact, but little was made, 
except the introduction of the Lord’s Supper, which was 
celebrated at each weekly meeting. 

The disciples continued to increase, and all continued their 
public worship as before. In what sense, then, can it be said 
that a new Church was, at this time, organized ? The only 
thing new was a new faith , and new moral practices. There 
was nothing new, nothing needed to be made new, in outward 
forms of worship or polity. Those who believed in Christ 
not only worshipped after their accustomed forms of syna¬ 
gogue-worship, but they oftentimes, whenever they could do 
so, worshipped in the synagogue, with other Jews. Some¬ 
times all the members of a particular synagogue, or a majority 
of them, would become converted to a belief in Christ; and 
the worship, as to its form , would continue pretty much as 
before. The only material change known to have taken place, 
was the celebration of the Lord’s Supper and Baptism. 

It must be remembered that the Homans cared not a whit 
about the religious worship or faith of the Jews. They per¬ 
mitted them to worship as they chose. All they cared about 
was, that in their public assemblies they should do nothing 
detrimental to their government; but whether they believed 


64 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


in Moses, or Christ, or both, or neither, was matter of perfect 
indifference to them. They required one or more of their 
own officers to be present at the meetings, to enforce civil 
subordination. Beyond this, they cared nothing. The part 
which Roman officers acted in the trials of Christ and his fol¬ 
lowers, was not because their alleged heresies violated any 
laws of theirs, for they had no laws on such subjects; but 
because they had undertaken, by previous stipulation, to 
assist the Jews in carrying out and enforcing their laws. 

The synagogue-worship, or form of service, consisted of 
three things: first, prayer; second, reading the Scriptures; 
third, preaching, or expounding the Scriptures. What need 
was there for a change ? 

Let it also be remembered that u the disciples were called 
Christians first at Antioch.” Acts. xi. 26. Now Antioch was 
a Gentile city, and it was here that the first Gentile Church 
was established. (Watson’s Dictionary, p. 730.) In the Acts 
of the Apostles, chapter xi., from the 19tli to the 26th verses 
inclusive, we learn that upon the death of Stephen, and the 
persecution which followed, some of the disciples travelled as 
far as Antioch, and preached the gospel with great effect. 
When these things were known at Jerusalem, they sent Bar¬ 
nabas there, to assist and encourage the young converts. After 
remaining there a time, he went to Tarsus to seek Saul, and 
they both preached the gospel in that city with great success. 
This was the occasion of the name “ Christians” being first 
applied to the disciples of Christ. This, according to Wat¬ 
son’s Theological Dictionary, page 730, was thirteen years 
after the Christian religion began to be preached by the apos¬ 
tles. 

Now, in these thirteen years, what were the disciples 
u called ?” If they had, before this time, organized themselves 
into an ecclesiastical government, alongside of, and distinct 
from, and in opposition to the only ecclesiastical government 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


65 


then known in the world—viz., that of the Jews—it is very 
pertinent and very important to inquire, What was that eccle¬ 
siastical government called ? To say that it was not known 
by any particular name—that it was not distinguished from 
other associations or other people—is equivalent to saying that 
it did not exist; for the idea of a public government, embra¬ 
cing many thousands of persons, in a country where public 
assemblies and organizations attracted the attention they did 
there in the Roman government, which had nothing, not even 
a name to designate or distinguish it, cannot be tolerated a 
moment. 

Dr. Adam Clarke tells us very satisfactorily what the dis¬ 
ciples or followers of Christ were called before they took the 
name of Christians at Antioch. In his comment on Acts xi. 26, 
the passage now before us, he says: 

“ Before this time the Jewish converts were simply called 
among themselves disciples; i. e., scholars; believers , saints , 
the Church , or assembly; and by their enemies, Nazarenes , 
Galileans , the men of this ivay, or sect; and perhaps other 
names which are not come down to us.” 

These facts are utterly incompatible with the idea that, 
from the first, they were organized into a separate and distinct 
ecclesiastical government, with positive laws, and positive dis¬ 
cipline, and an independent jurisdiction. 

Not the slightest intimation is made, however, that even at 
Antioch the disciples were organized into a separate ecclesi¬ 
astical government, the forms of which differed from the 
Jewish polity. It is only stated that then and there they first 
took the general name of Christians. Whether this name 
was given them by others, or they assumed it themselves, the 
learned are not agreed, nor is it important to our present 
argument. 

If, on examination, it shall be found that the apostles them¬ 
selves were, and continued to be, regular members of the 


66 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


Jewish Church, what will come of the idea that they organ¬ 
ized, and set up alongside of the Jewish Church, a different 
and rival institution, with a reformed government ? 

It will not be doubted for a moment that the apostles, as 
well as their Divine Master, were, at the first, members of the 
Jewish Church. Did they ever formally leave that Church, 
by voluntary withdrawal or otherwise ? The supposition that 
such an important occurrence as this took place in the lives 
of the apostles, requires, at least, some specific and well-au¬ 
thenticated proof. Is there in the New Testament the slightest 
intimation, directly or indirectly, or in any way, favoring 
such a fact? Did they discontinue their regular attendance 
upon the synagogue-worship, as had been their custom all 
their lives ? Did they neglect or discontinue the accustomed 
temple services ? or those of the regular feasts ? Or what did 
they do, or omit to do, which indicated a personal severance 
from the J ewish Church ? 

Can these questions be answered ? 

On the contrary, it is susceptible of very clear proof, that, 
for at least ten or twelve years after the death of Christ, and 
when Christianity had become considerably extended in the 
world, the apostles, or some of them, still recognized their 
membership in the Jewish Church. 

The worship of the synagogue will be briefly inquired into 
in a future chapter; but it may be proper here just to re¬ 
mark, that it was very strict, precise, and formal. It required 
certain officers to occupy each one his precise position, and to 
discharge his own precise duties. The synagogue was formally 
opened at the appointed hour on every Sabbath day, and the 
services formally opened by the proper officer, and as formally 
concluded and closed. Of course none but a recognized mem- 
ber of the Jewish Church could hold an ecclesiastical office 
therein, or discharge any of these official duties. It has al¬ 
ready been said that these services consisted, first, in prayer; 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 67 

second, reading the Scriptures; and third, preaching, or ex¬ 
pounding the word so read. 

Now, is not the fact familiar to all Bible readers, that the 
apostles did frequently, nay, customarily, worship in the syna¬ 
gogue, and discharge the regular duties pertaining to one of 
these offices ? 

Acts xiii. 14, 15 : “ But when they [Paul and Barnabas] 
departed from Perga, they came to Antioch, in Pisidia, 
and went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and sat 
down. And after the reading of the law and the prophets, 
the rulers of the synagogue sent unto them, saying, Ye men 
and brethren, if ye have any word of exhortation for the peo¬ 
ple, say on.” 

There could be no public speaking in the synagogue until 
the ruler or rulers gave permission, which permission was 
regularly communicated to those who were recognized as hold¬ 
ing the office of minister or public speaker, and who filled 
that chair or office for that day. Though sometimes other 
persons of note and learning, accustomed to public speaking, 
were invited by the ruler to address the people. See Horne’s 
Introduction, vol. ii., pp. 104, 105, 106. 

Acts xvii. 2 : “And Paul, as his manner was, went in 
unto them, and three Sabbath days reasoned with them out 
of the Scriptures, opening and alleging,” etc. 

Acts xviii. 4 : “And he reasoned in the synagogue every 
Sabbath, and persuaded the Jews and the Greeks.” 

Almost this same remark is made of Christ in Luke iv. 16: 
“And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up; 
*and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the 
Sabbath day, and stood up for to read.” 

Acts xix. 8 : “And he went into the synagogue, and spake 
boldly for the space of three months, disputing and persuad¬ 
ing the things concerning the kingdom of God.” 

The same thing is mentioned in chapter xviii. 19, and else- 


68 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


where. It is unnecessary to multiply quotations. These 
things show conclusively that St. Paul was recognized, both 
by himself and others, as an officer in the Jewish Church. 

Acts iii. 1 : “Now, Peter and John went up together into 
the temple, at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour.” 

What took them into the temple to pray at the ninth hour, 
or any other hour, but a conformity to the regular custom of 
their Church ? If they had had no connection with the Jew- 
ish Church, they would have cared as little about praying in 
the temple at the ninth hour as at any other particular place 
or any other particular hour. 

Acts ix. 26 : “And when Saul was come to Jerusalem, he 
assayed to join himself to the disciples; but they were all 
afraid of him, and believed not that he was a disciple. But 
Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles, and 
declared unto them how he had seen the Lord in the way, 
and that he had spoken to him, and how he had preached 
boldly at Damascus in the name of Jesus. And he was with 
them coming in and going out at Jerusalem.” 

Paul had now been preaching the gospel three years. See 
Watson’s Dictionary, p. 730. The apostles themselves knew 
nothing of him, except as a bold persecutor of Christians 
several years ago. “ They were all afraid of him,” until 
Barnabas assured them of his conversion, and of his bold 
preaching in the name of Jesus. 

Can any thing more palpably than this contradict the idea 
that Paul had all this while been leagued with the apostles 
and others in mutual membership in an external association ? 
Barnabas did not tell them that Paul was a member of their 
Church, but that he had been converted , and boldly preached 
in the name of Christ. 

Paul, in his apostolical journeyings westward, failed not, 
when it was possible to do so, to return annually to Jerusalem, 
to celebrate the feast of Pentecost. When at Ephesus, seve- 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


69 


ral hundred miles from Jerusalem, his brethren desired him 
to remain longer. “But he bade them farewell, saying, I 
must by all means keep this feast that cometh in Jerusalem; 
but I will return unto you, if God will.” Acts xviii. 21. 

And in Acts xx. 16 : “ For he hasted, if it were possible 
for him to be at Jerusalem the day of Pentecost.” Mark the 
earnestness of the apostle, and the imperativeness of his lan¬ 
guage : “/ must by all means keep this feast that cometh at 
Jerusalem .” u For he hasted , if it were possible for him 
to be at Jerusalem the day of Pentecost .” 

Was this labor, eight hundred or a thousand miles travel, 
and anxiety to attend the great annual feast of the Jews at 
Jerusalem, performed in virtue of his membership in the Jew¬ 
ish Church, or as a member of a new, and different, and 
opposing Church organization ? Did the rules of the Chris¬ 
tian Church, as contradistinguished from the Jewish, require 
this annual attendance upon the feast of Pentecost at Jerusa¬ 
lem ? 

Paul also distinctly claimed not only that he was a Jew, but 
that he was a “Pharisee.” Acts xxiii. 6. 

The disciples were, from the first, in the habit of worship¬ 
ping in their respective synagogues. This is seen from the 
remark of Paul in Acts xxii. 19 : “And I said, Lord, they 
know that I imprisoned and beat in every synagogue them 
that believed on thee.” 

This argument might be pursued much farther, and many 
other proofs might be brought from the sacred record. It 
seems conclusive, however, that, whatever was the religious 
faith of the disciples, and whatever relation they may have 
sustained among themselves, or to unbelieving Jews, they 
did not at an early period dissever themselves from an exter¬ 
nal membership in the Jewish Church, and organize them¬ 
selves into a new, different, and opposing Church government. 

Let us pursue the investigation patiently and carefully. 



70 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


CHAPTER VI. 

ORIGIN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH, CONTINUED. 

Let us now inquire, very briefly, into tbe character of the 
Jewish synagogue, and notice the forms of public service 
observed therein. 

The synagogue form of worship among the Jews had been 
in vogue since the captivity, about six hundred years. It 
sprang up incidentally, out of circumstances connected with 
their captive condition, and by degrees grew into the condi¬ 
tion we find it in, in the time of Christ. It was the universal 
form of regular ordinary Jewish worship. Not less than four 
hundred and sixty Jewish synagogues were at this time in 
Jerusalem. (Watson’s Theological Dictionary, p. 884.) Wher¬ 
ever there were Jews, there was a synagogue. 

The first officer of the synagogue was the ruler. There 
was one or more to each synagogue. It was in this officer 
that the civil or political functions of government resided. It 
was his duty to see that every thing was done in order, that 
the laws of the Romans respecting public assemblies were 
carefully observed, and to try and punish petty crimes and 
offences. He does not appear to have been an ecclesiastic in 
any sense, but rather an officer of police, or of the state. It 
is contended by some that all the officers of the syna¬ 
gogue were elected by its members. This was no doubt the 
case with regard to all the other officers, the religious officers, 
and it may have been the case with the ruler. They may 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


71 


have had some choice in his selection, but he was the repre¬ 
sentative of the government, and in that capacity watched 
over the movements of the assembly. Nothing was done 
without his permission. 

The second officer of the synagogue was called the angel, 
or messenger. It was his duty to open the services by offer¬ 
ing up public prayers, according to the prescribed forms. 

And the third officer was called the minister, or servant. 
It was his duty to keep charge of the sacred books, to hand 
them out to the angel in time of service, etc. 

There were also some other minor officers; but these appear 
not always to have been the same, and were probably differ¬ 
ent in different times and places. 

The services of the synagogue were of three parts: First, 
prayers, of which there were several to be offered up. Sec¬ 
ond, reading the Scriptures: there were three lessons 
assigned to each Sabbath in the year, to be read regularly. 
Third, preaching: this service was usually performed by 
the angel—an officer answering to our minister, or preacher— 
as the first sacred officer. Though if any other person, 
belonging to any other synagogue, and holding the same office 
there, chanced to be present, and who was in the habit of 
performing such services, and recognized as a public teacher, 
permission would be procured from the ruler for him to 
preach, or the ruler would invite him to do so. The services 
generally closed with preaching. 

These were the general features of the synagogue. Learned 
writers seem to differ, however, in regard to several matters 
of minor importance. The probability is, that these minor 
details differed at different times and in different places. 

It must be remembered, also, that the Jews, in their reli¬ 
gion, were cut up into sects and parties; and that deep corrup¬ 
tion and superstition pervaded the Church. 

Now, with this kind of religious service the apostles and 



72 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


disciples, and all other Jews, were perfectly familiar, and had 
been all their lives; for they had participated in it every 
Sabbath day since the dawn of their earliest recollection. It 
was their religion ; and religion, such as it was, was with the 
Jew every thing. 

Here is where we first find the apostles and other disciples. 
It was in this state of things that Christ began to teach and to 
preach in their synagogues. And what was there remarkable 
now? Nothing whatever, except that in his preaching , in 
the regular course of the services, as above set forth, ho 
preached some things , he advanced some sentiments, in his 
discourse, differing from what they had heard the Sab¬ 
bath before. But the government of the Church was no 
more affected thereby than would be that of ' one of our 
churches now, by the preaching of some new and strange 
doctrine by some celebrated divine. The things which Jesus 
Christ taught and preached were remarkable, and attracted 
attention; but nothing else was remarkable, nothing else was 
touched. 

The Saviour regularly filled the office of angel of the 
synagogue, when he preached in a synagogue—the highest 
ecclesiastical office—and regularly, in the usual way, conferred 
with the ruler and the minister, as above explained. 

Now, let it be repeated, for the truth is important, that in 
his teachings delivered to his apostles, he never intimated one 
word , so far as we know or have the slightest reason to 
believe, that there was any thing respecting either the form 
of synagogue-worship or of synagogue government that needed 
modification or change. 

And further still, there was nothing wrong in the religions 
sentiments of the Jews, except in so far as they rejected him 
as their Saviour, and in things which naturally resulted from 
such rejection. And we may go still farther, and say that, 
to this day, this is the only objection to be urged against the 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


73 


Jews. The Jews, as far as they go, are correct in their 
religion. 

But now the grand question comes up: IIow did the Chris¬ 
tian Church, as contradistinguished from the synagogue gov¬ 
ernment and worship, come into being ? Our worship is not 
indiscriminate with that of the Jews, nor has it been since 
the days of the apostles. When and where and by whom was 
the Church organized ? it may be asked. 

In the first place, it must be remembered, that there never 
was, from the birth of Christ to the present time, a set of 
rules and regulations forming an ecclesiastical code or discip¬ 
line, setting forth in detail a form of Church government, 
which could be rightfully claimed as the exclusive discipline 
or external frame of “the Christian Church.” There was 
never such an instrument of writing, nor was there ever such 
a thing, set forth authoritatively, by oral instruction. 

There is a sense, however, in which we may speak of “the 
Christian Church,” meaning its external framework, dis¬ 
cipline, and form of government, in contradistinction to the 
Jewish Church. The religion of Christians differs so mate¬ 
rially from that of the Jews; the line of demarcation is so 
distinct, broad and visible, both in an internal and external 
sense, that there could scarcely fail to be seen a general and 
marked difference in their forms of government and discipline 
respectively. And this general difference has ever been, and 
is now, clearly observable. 

Still, “ the Christian Church” never had a discipline. 
Each separate or individual church must necessarily have a 
discipline, written or unwritten; or a hundred, or a thousand 
churches may federate under the same discipline. 

In the days of the apostles, the Christian churches, or 
communities, either did or they did not federate; or tliero 
was or was not a partial or sectional federation; or, as new 
churches were formed by apostles and others, as they travelled 
4 










74 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


and preached, they either were or they were not all placed 
tinder the same discipline. So that when we speak of the 
discipline, or form of government, of the Christian Church 
in the days of the apostles, we must either concede that they 
acted under a uniform discipline—that they were all exactly 
alike—either by a universal federation all over the world, or 
by a fixed and unalterable discipline being placed over them 
by their respective founders—each one exactly like all the 
rest—or we must speak of the discipline and government of 
the churches severally and respectively. 

“ The Christian Church” was not one thing, at one time 
and one place, that may be looked at and spoken of distinct¬ 
ively, so as to be spoken of as having a discipline, a govern¬ 
ment, unless we conclude that all the several communities 
had precisely the same government and discipline. And this 
cannot possibly be admitted. 

The question, then, is not, u How did the Christian Church 
come into being?”—meaning, of course, its external govern¬ 
ment and discipline; but it is, “ How did the Christian 
churches, or that general class of churches, come into being ?” 
This question is capable of being answered. 

And the question must receive the same general answer as 
would be given to one respecting the rise of any other Church 
or ecclesiastical system. How did the Jewish synagogue sys¬ 
tem come into being ? When and by whom was it framed 
and established ? It was never done at all at any one time, 
and by any one movement. 

When and where was the Roman Catholic Church estab¬ 
lished ? No such event ever took place at any one time. The 
Greek Church—the Lutheran Church—the Church of Ensr- 
land—the Scottish Presbyterian Church—these are all organ¬ 
ized Churches, with their respective characteristics and pecu¬ 
liarities ; but can any man point out the time and place when 
and where each one was organized—precisely where it was 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 75 

established—or exactly bow or by whom it was established ? 
Surely not. They grew up gradually by little and little, and 
became formed out of a thousand confluent but incidental cir¬ 
cumstances. 

How came the Jewish synagogue system into being? This 
was the way of it. When the Jews were carried captive to 
Babylon, they were deprived of the privilege of their regular 
temple service. Many of them were desirous of keeping up' 
their worship as well as they could, and resorted to persons 
of noted and distinguished piety, as they performed religious 
rites for their respective families, and instructed them in reli¬ 
gion. These meetings, in process of time, grew into a regu¬ 
lar system. Houses for their accommodation were erected, 
one thing after another was engrafted, one rule after another 
was adopted, until we find the synagogue system in full and 
regular operation. 

When, where, and by whom, was the Bomish Church 
organized, as it has existed for many centuries ? A glance at 
its history will show any one that it was six hundred years, at 
least, in the course of gradual conformation, before it attained 
to the characteristics which would entitle it to be considered 
the same establishment we see now. 

And was the Greek Church organized at any one time ? 
Its organization or establishment is well known to have been 
the result of metropolitan wars, and difficulties, and conten¬ 
tions, running through a long course of years and modifica¬ 
tions, which require a volume to enumerate and explain. It 
grew up from a beginning which no man can even define or 
put his finger upon, and came into being without even a pre¬ 
concerted intention on the part of any one to found such an 
establishment. 

The Church of England is also without a datable origin. 
It is easy enuugli to look at it now, with its liturgies, its 
prayers, its sacraments, and its ceremonies. But who can 


76 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


trace the organization to its precise commencement ? There 
was a time when the Romish Church was the only Church in 
England, Italy, Germany, and elsewhere. The Reformation 
in Germany and Switzerland had spread a spirit of reform, in 
some degree, throughout Europe. And about this time, it 
chanced that a certain king of England got tired of his wife, 
and wished to marry another woman; and the pope was afraid 
to divorce him, for fear of creating a political difficulty in an¬ 
other quarter. Some shrewd friends of the king devised a 
plan for a divorce without the authority of the pope; and 
this made it necessary for England to declare her ecclesiastical 
independence of the Church of Rome; and so Henry came 
out u Head of the Church,”—a separate Church in England. 
The religious feature of the Reformation was then picked up 
as a matter of convenience by the government, and was seized 
hold of as a matter of pious principle by many individuals. 
The Church then reeled and tottered through the reign of 
several successive kings and queens—at one time Protestant, 
and again Romish—until at length the corruptions of Rome 
became measurably subdued, and the result of the whole, in¬ 
terlarding with many other local and incidental circumstances, 
was the institution now known as the Church of England. 

Is there a Church in existence—was there ever one, ex¬ 
cept the theocracy under Moses and his successors—that did 
not come into being in this gradual, almost imperceptible, 
step-by-step kind of way? Let us remember, we are not 
now inquiring any thing about religion , about the faith which 
men have, but about the organization of religious men, so 
called, into societies or Churches. 

There is a most remarkable coincidence between the man¬ 
ner in which the Christian Church grew out of the Jewish 
Church, and that in which the Methodist Church grew out 
of the Church of England. It will not be attempted here to 
argue, from this similarity, any thing particularly or legally 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


77 


favorable to Methodism, for the valuableness or glory of 
Churches lies in the solid piety of their members. But the 
historic likeness is remarkable indeed; and as it lies directly 
in the way of the argument before us, it cannot be passed 
over unnoticed. 

The Church of England was wending on its plodding way 
in dull and weary uselessness; her ministers had lost the 
spirit of the gospel, and her laity were worldly and irreligious. 
Listen to some of her own testimonies of herself. 

Bishop Burnet said, (Conclusion of the History of his Own 
Times,) u I have lamented during my whole life that I saw 
so little zeal among our clergy. I saw much of it in the clergy 
of the Church of Rome, though it is both ill-directed and ill- 
conducted. I saw much zeal, likewise, throughout the for¬ 
eign Churches. The Dissenters have a great deal among 
them; but I must own that the main body of our clergy has 
always appeared dead and lifeless to me; and, instead of 
animating one another, they seem rather to lay one another 
asleep.” 

Mr. Simpson says: u If a man happens to have got a little 
more zeal than ordinary, and labors more diligently to do good 
than the generality of his brethren, immediately they are all 
in arms against him. And nothing is more common than for 
his ecclesiastical superiors to frown upon him, to stigmatize 
him as a Methodist, and to oppose his interests in every way 
they can contrive. Whereas, a clergyman may be a man of 
pleasure and dissipation; gay, silly, foolish, trifling; he may 
spend his time in the diversions of the field; drink, swear, 
and live as foolishly as the most foolish of his flock, and yet 
no harm shall happen. He is no Methodist, and therefore 
every favor shall be shown him which he can desire. Me¬ 
thodism is like the sin against the Holy Ghost: it is neither 
to be forgiven in this world nor the world to come.”— Simp¬ 
son's Plea for Religion , p. 81. 


78 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


Again lie says, page 77: u But who is to blame for tlie 
spread of infidelity? The bishops and clergy of the land, 
more than any other people in it. We, as a body of men, 
are almost solely and exclusively culpable. Our negligence, 
worldly-mindedness, lukewarmness, and immorality, will ruin 
the country. And when the judgments of God come upon 
the land, they will fall particularly heavy upon the heads of 
our order of men.” 

Again he says: “ I was almost going to say that we par¬ 
sons have been the means of damning more souls than ever we 
were a mean of saving. From our profession it is that ini¬ 
quity diffuses itself through every land. God forgive us ! we 
have been too bad !”—Page 168. 

Sir Isaac Newton said, “ Infidelity will overrun Europe 
before the millennial reign of Christ commences; the corrup¬ 
tions of religion in all the Christian establishments cannot 
easily be purged away in any other manner .”—Observations 
on Man , Part ii., sec. 81. 

The Church of England was about as rotten religiously in 
the days of Wesley as the Jewish Church was in the days of 
Christ. 

Amidst these corruptions, Mr. Wesley was led to look after 
a revival of religion. He met a few friends, and communi¬ 
cated his views to them. They continued to meet weekly 
for prayer, exhortation, and reading the Scriptures. These 
meetings became interesting. Religion revived with them. 
Men and women became converted. Their numbers in¬ 
creased, so that they had to divide and meet in different 
places. For the sake of concert and uniformity, they must 
needs have some memoranda of rules, in a small way, for 
their actions. Leaders, exhorters, or preachers, were ap¬ 
pointed by Mr. Wesley, for the different meetings. They 
increased, extended, became numerous. More preachers 
were needed, which, of course, Mr. Wesley supplied as well 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 79 

as lie could. Thus he soon found himself—not by any inten¬ 
tion of his own, but by force of circumstances—the head of 
a large number of “ societies” in the Church; for they were 
all, at first at least, members of the Church of England. The 
societies extended; members increased : additional rules and 
regulations became necessary for immediate convenience, 
which Mr. Wesley supplied. The societies increased more 
and faster, until they soon became a matter of public and 
even national interest. The regular uniformity of their pro¬ 
ceeding gave them the name of Method-ists. Everybody 
called them u Methodistsand so they were Methodists; 
and they have worn the name gracefully, with some little 
exception, ever since. Their name was first given them in 
contempt and derision; but still it was their name. This 
was, in all probability, the case with the name Christian , first 
given to the disciples of Christ at Antioch. 

But all this while Mr. Wesley and his associates in this 
remarkable revival of religion—for it was nothing more nor 
less than a remarkable revival of religion—had no intention 
of doing any thing with the question of Church government , 
beyond the making and adoption of such by-rules and regu¬ 
lations as their immediate necessities required. They had no 
intention of changing the ecclesiastical laws of England, 
or of interfering with them, or of setting up a rival or oppo¬ 
sition establishment. They had no objection to the Church 
government of the Church of England. The only thing they 
sought to do was, to promote and extend true religion in the 
Church. 

But the natural cohesion and sympathy of mutual piety— 
the love that constraineth us —cemented them together. A 
oneness of feeling, and zeal, and religious enjoyment, and 
holy purpose, pervaded the membership of these societies, 
and they became a Church—not by design or intention, but 
by the natural confluence of these elements and circum- 


80 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


stances, which so strongly tend to fraternization, and which 
coalescence is a Church, according to the definitions which 
have been given. A Church is a society of Christians, preach¬ 
ing the gospel, administering the sacraments, and otherwise 
following Christ. Can any company or association of human 
persons rise higher than that in any evangelical scale ? 

And so Mr. Wesley’s humble, unpretending, and simple- 
hearted prayer-meeting became one of the largest evangelical 
Churches in the world. 

And yet it might be asked, Who established the Methodist 
Church ? When and where was it organized ? The historic 
facts do not allow of categorical answers to these questions. 
The religion of the Church was u established ” eighteen hun¬ 
dred years ago by Jesus Christ; but the organization of the 
men professing it into an ecclesiastical association has been in 
the course of being established, or organized, as it now exists, 
during the last one hundred years and upwards. As is the 
case with all other ecclesiastical organizations, it came into being 
gradually, by the force of a thousand confluent and conforming 
circumstances. 

It is true that, in 1784, the Methodists of America assumed 
more decidedly than they had previously done, independent 
ecclesiastical power. But they were previously a separate 
Church to all intents and purposes. 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


81 


CHAPTER VII. 

ORIGIN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH, CONTINUED. 

The reader will please to be reminded that the teachings 
of Jesus Christ were confined exclusively to the subject of 
religion. He explained how and what men should do and 
believe, as individual or associate Christians. Beyond this he 
taught nothing. 

And his apostles, after him, followed the same course. 
They preached exclusively on the subject of the religion of 
Christianity. The great revival on the day of Pentecost toQk 
place shortly after they entered upon their ministry. The 
heart-cheering and soul-wanning sentiments and feelings con¬ 
sequent upon a conviction of so great a truth as the atonement 
and resurrection of a personal Saviour, accompanied by the 
immediate presence and power of the Holy Ghost, had the 
effect naturally of drawing the believers into close and inti¬ 
mate union and association; not because they belonged to a 
different external organization from other Jews—for they did 
not—but because they professed and enjoyed the same religion. 

All these things took place in the Jewish Church. They 
did not conflict with or antagonize any thing belonging 
to their Church ritual or forms of government or even of 
worship. They were rather considerations and truths super- 
added thereto. It was merely the commencement and revival 
of true religion in the Jewish Church. But the farther it 
4 * 


82 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


progressed, the more powerful was the coalescence among the 
believers, and the more they became estranged in feeling and 
action from other Jews. 

The natural flow of circumstances caused the breach of 
separation to become wider and wider. On the one hand, the 
apostles and other believers accused the unbelieving Jews of 
the most flagrant ingratitude, injustice, and crime, in falsely 
condemning and brutally sacrificing the Lord of life and glory; 
and on the other, they .endeavored, by entreaty and persua¬ 
sion, to win them over to the embrace of the truth. The be¬ 
lieving Jews thus very soon became a distinct party in the 
Church, and they were opposed by the opposing party. But 
this was nothing more nor less than two parties in the Church. 
The believing Jews became, at the first, a society in the 
Church. And as their numbers increased, and the revival 
spread, and new converts came in, and it became locally, and 
numerically, and geographically necessary for them to divide 
into different societies, and hold more meetings at more 
places, it was only an increase and extension of the societies. 

These societies, or the people composing them, must natu¬ 
rally be distinguished by some name, for they must frequently 
be spoken of iu some way. At first they were called, not 
u Methodists,” but “ men of this way,” disciples, or Naza- . 
renes, and at length, by common consent, they were called 
Christians; and of course they have retained the name. They 
retained the name, not because it was a corporate name, offi¬ 
cially assumed as the name of an organized ecclesiastical 
government, but simply because the current of public senti¬ 
ment acquiesced in it. They were “ called Christians,” and 
therefore Christian was their name. 

It is remarkable, too, and the consideration greatly strength¬ 
ens this argument, that this name was given to this religious 
party, these societies, not at Jerusalem, where the first society 
was formed—the headquarters and general rendezvous, as I 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 83 

may say, of the disciples—but away in a distant country, 
where the new religion had but just been heard of. 

They were called Christians first at Antioch. 

The advocates of the doctrine that Christians were, from 
the first, a corporation, distinct and independent as such, must 
account for the entire absence of a corporate name. A cor¬ 
poration implies the necessity of a name to distinguish the 
corporation. A corporation which has no name by which it 
may be identified or distinguished, is no corporation at all; 
for the very reason, in the nature of the case, that it pos¬ 
sesses no ready means by which it may be singled out and 
spoken of as such. 

It will, perhaps, not be contended that “the Christian 
Church” was organized as a corporation at Antioch, where the 
name was first known. Antioch was a Gentile city. The 
Jews there would not listen to Christianity, and Paul and 
Barnabas turned to the Gentiles, and many of them were con¬ 
verted. It was here, many hundred miles from Jerusalem, 
among these Gentile converts, that the disciples first received 
the name of Christians. The Christian religion had now 
been preached, most probably, about eighteen or twenty years; 
and had spread far and wide among different people, and in 
different countries. 

It is nest to certain that the “ corporation,” or “ positive 
institution,” was not organized at this time at Antioch; 
though if organized specifically at any time and place, it would 
seem it must have been when and where the name was first 
known—from the consideration that no ecclesiastical authority 
was recognized as residing at this place at that time. This is 
seen from the fact, that about this very time the society at 
Antioch had to send to the apostles and brethren at Jerusa¬ 
lem for authoritative information respecting the necessity of 
circumcision on the part of Gentile converts. 

The apostles and brethren preached religion—Christianity— 


84 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


revival and spread of the truth respecting Jesus—in the 
Church and out of the Church—anywhere and everywhere. 
Specific, identical, and close coalescence—exclusive commun¬ 
ion and association—adhesion amongst themselves and oppo¬ 
sition to all opposers—union and affiliation in heart and soul 
and action—were as natural, under the circumstances, as the 
attraction of gravitation is natural. The connection of these 
believing Jews with their Church became rapidly more and 
more nominal—less and less real. As cohesion formed more 
and more closely in the one direction, the bonds of union be¬ 
came more and more slackened in the other, until they ceased 
to be recognized and felt. The probability is, that many of 
them were, in some places, excommunicated. u For the Jews 
had agreed already, that if any man did confess that he was 
Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue.” John ix. 22. 
But excommunication from the Jewish Church affected them 
about as little now, as did the excommunication of Luther 
and his associates by the Pope of Borne. 

And it is particularly appropriate just here to inquire, 
How did Luther and the other early Beformers get out of the 
Bomish Church ? So far as the Bomish Church was con¬ 
cerned, they were excommunicated. But did they leave one 
Church and organize and join another ? It is just as proper to 
say that Luther excommunicated the pope, as that the pope ex¬ 
communicated Luther. In the course of events, they and their 
respective followers became dissevered, and a separate and 
distinct fraternization took place. Luther and his followers 
did not organize; that is, they did not form themselves into 
a distinct corporation, separate from and in opposition to the 
Bomish Church. The preaching and propagation of the true 
principles of religion brought about a coalition, or a society; 
and then numerous societies. And then, in the progress and 
growth of these societies, some peculiar rules and regulations 
for the sake of order and uniformity became necessary. Thus 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 85 

it was in the growth of the Church of Christ as it emerged 
out of Judaism ; thus it was in the growth of the Methodist 
Church as it emerged out of Anglicanism. 

When was the precise time at which the Methodist Church, 
or societies, could be legally and properly considered a Church ? 
There never was any such precise period. When was the 
precise time at which the Reformed Church, under Luther, 
could be legally and properly considered a Church ? There 
never was any such precise time. When was the precise 
time at which the Church of Christ could be legally and 
properly called a Church ? There never was any such pre¬ 
cise time. Churches are not corporations. They are compa¬ 
nies, societies, or associations, of Christians. 

If you look at the infant Christian Church—for it might 
as well be called a Church—a Church is a company of Chris¬ 
tians following Christ—if you look at the infant Church, you 
see one, two, three, or more, societies in the Jewish Church - 
that is, in the Jewish Church considered as an outward, ex¬ 
ternal organization. These societies have the true religion. 
They preach the true gospel, they enjoy religion, and they 
compose the germ of an external as well as the commence¬ 
ment of an internal Christianity. If you look into their rules 
or discipline, you find that, at Jirst, they have none that are 
exclusive of the rules of the synagogue. But they will, ne¬ 
cessarily, very soon require some little rules of direction not 
common to the synagogue. That is, as they draw off, by 
little and little, in pursuance of the natural laws of exclusive 
association, from a common and indiscriminate synagogue- 
worship, some rules additional and suited to their peculiar 
circumstances, become, from time to time, necessary to be 
adopted. And as they recede farther from the more regular 
Jewish worship of the synagogue, they become more and 
more established in an independent jurisdiction. 

Every reformation in religion, the world over, which has 


86 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


resulted in tiie formation of separate ecclesiastical jurisdic¬ 
tion, has proceeded in this way. The Church grew into being 
in this way. The disseverance took place in this way. There 
is no exception. The formation of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, South, and that of the Wesleyan Church in Canada, 
were not reformations in religion. They were mere voluntary 
jurisdictional divisions. Many other ecclesiastical divisions 
have grown out of specific causes. The establishment of the 
Protestant Episcopal Church in this country, as an offshoot 
from the Church of England, grew out of political causes re¬ 
specting the two governments. It is impracticable for a 
separate Church organization to grow out of and become 
based upon a reformation in religion in any other way than 
this. 

The first Churches of the Reformation of the sixteenth 
century, in Germany, in Switzerland, in England, and in 
France, were, at first , mere informal societies in the Romish 
Church. They became Churches, in perhaps a more proper 
sense, in the course of events, after a while. 

“ Christianity was as yet but an expanded Judaism. . . No¬ 
thing is more remarkable than to see the horizon of the apostles 
gradually receding, and, instead of resting on the borders of 
the Holy Land, comprehending the whole world : barrier after 
barrier falling down before the superior wisdom infused into 
their minds/'— Milman’s Church History , p. 158. 

On pages 162 and 163 of Milman's History, may be found 
a very lucid explanation of the decision given by the apostles, 
and elders, and Church at Jerusalem, in reply to the appeal 
from Antioch, respecting the alleged necessity for circumcision 
on the part of Gentile converts. His American editor in a 
foot-note says:— 

u Ti* e reason assigned for these regulations appears to infer 
that, as yet, the Christians in general met in the same places 
of religious assemblage with the Jews ) at least, this view gives 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


87 


a clear and simple sense to a mucli-contested passage. These 
provisions were necessary, because the Mosaic law was univer¬ 
sally read, and from immemorial usage, in the synagogues. 
The direct violation of its most vital principles by any of 
those who joined in the common worship, would be incongru¬ 
ous, and of course highly offensive to the more zealous Mosa- 
ists.” 

Milman, it will be remembered, is a Church of England 
divine, and his editor in this country an Episcopalian. They 
may, therefore, ‘both be supposed to favor the corporation doc¬ 
trine of Church jurisprudence. And we are told by them 
that as late as about the twentieth year of Christianity, A. D. 
53, the Jews and Christians, or, more properly, the believing 
and unbelieving Jews, worshipped indiscriminately in the 
same place, and, in the regular course of the synagogue ser¬ 
vices, listened alike to the regular reading of the law of 
Moses. 

In truth, the wise, delicate, and nicely balanced decision of 
the brethren at Jerusalem, in reply to the inquiry from Anti¬ 
och, can be accounted for upon no other grounds than this. 
They were all Jews except the Gfentile converts : some believed 
in Christ and some did not; but this distinction, great and 
powerful and all-pervading as it was in some respects, had not 
yet travelled so far into the habits of the people and customs 
of the times as to produce an ecclesiastical division of parties 
in the light of two distinct, separate, and independent Church 
organizations. 

We must remember they had not the guidance of the New 
Testament Scriptures. And, let it be inquired, what is a 
Christian Church in the absence of the New Testament Scrip¬ 
tures, but “an expanded Judaism V’ In external manners, 
in forms, customs, rites, ecclesiastical jurisprudence, and 
outward religion, saving in moral conduct, what, in the 
nature of the case, could be expected of Jews, such as the early 


\ 


88 THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 

disciples were, but Judaism ? Their Christianity consisted in 
religious faith and experience respecting the Lord Jesus Christ 
as being the true Messiah of God, the Saviour of the world. 
Beyond these considerations, what were the essential marks 
of difference between believing and unbelieving Jews ? What 
is the difference now between a Christian and a Jew ? Does 
a Christian repudiate any part, much less the whole, of the 
true and proper religion of a Jew? Do we repudiate the Old 
Testament Scriptures or any part of them ? Is Christianity 
any thing more than a system of religious principles and 
truths, superadded to true and proper Judaism ? And, more¬ 
over, to pursue more closely the argument in hand, Is there 
any thing inconsistent or incongruous in the notion of Jews 
and Christians having the same form of Church government ? 
It is very true, that in the time of Christ the Jews had greatly 
perverted their religion, and that it has been greatly perverted 
by the rejection of the Saviour, if in nothing else, ever since. 
But the question is, Was there any thing in the Judaism of 
the time of Christ, except their perversion of religion and 
their rejection of the Saviour, that the disciples would feel 
themselves bound to make war with ? Is there any thing 
else now? Judaism was intended to be the religion of God’s 
chosen people, and to last till Christ, when it was to be suc¬ 
ceeded by a religion for the world. 

The introduction of Christianity was only the introduction 
of new and additional religious principles, and the repudiation 
of some Jewish superstitions and practices which they had 
engrafted upon their religion. Was it any thing more than 
the introduction and spread of true religion ? Did it relate 
to Church government at all, beyond its universal injunction 
that, in all the affairs of life, men must conduct themselves 
with mildness, justice, patience, forbearance, and good-nature? 
A Church government or any other kind of government, or 
any thing else, that does not maintain these qualities and princi- 


J 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 89 

pies, is violative of Christianity, because these are catholic 
principles universally enjoined. 

But what affinity is there between Church government and 
religion ? Is there any religion in a government , abstractly 
considered, irrespective of the manner in which it is admin¬ 
istered ? The form of a man’s house, or his coat, is as 
unsusceptible of the quality of religion or irreligion, as is the 
form of the government of a Church, and no more so. 
The introduction of Christianity was, therefore, no more cal¬ 
culated to lead the minds of the apostles and other disciples 
to a modification of their form of Church government, than 
to a modification of their dress, domestic habits, or education; 
unless they discovered something in their then existing Church 
government which contravened some of the Christian pre¬ 
cepts. And we have already seen, that neither Christ nor his 
apostles ever intimated that there was any thing wrong in the 
then existing Church government of the Jews. 

There can be no doubt but at first there was an indiscrimi¬ 
nate mingling of believing and unbelieving Jews in all the 
public worship. The only peculiarity in the worship now and 
formerly was this, that when any of the apostles, or other public 
person believing in Christ, who was recognized as being quali¬ 
fied or entitled to fill the office of u angel,” or preacher, 
chanced to be present, and obtained the privilege of preach¬ 
ing, he would preach the doctrines of Christ. 

The Christian doctrines were now making a stir in Jerusa¬ 
lem. The unbelieving Jews violently opposed them; but 
they could not silence the believing preachers in the syna¬ 
gogue without a formal trial; and the doctrines continued to 
widen and deepen in the minds of the people. The line of 
demarcation between the two parties continued to widen, and 
grow more and more distinct and decisive. But the associa¬ 
tion among the believers was based upon and had reference 
exclusively to the new religious doctrine which they espoused. 


90 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


It did not necessarily, violently, and at once separate them 
personally, and cause them to worship, in their regular Sab¬ 
bath-day worship, separately and in different places from other 
Jews. A glance at the inspired history will show us that this 
was by no means the case. They worshipped together, to 
some considerable extent at least, for years. 

By little and little their worship would become distinct and 
exclusive. No doubt at a very early period a whole syna¬ 
gogue, or most of it, would become converted to the Christian 
doctrines, and now it is a Christian synagogue, or Church: 
that is, the members thereof, or most of them, are believers. 

After a while, opposition—violent opposition—would drive 
companies of believers to worship in other places than in a 
regular synagogue : that is, in a house built and used for this 
purpose. And when an entire synagogue, or most of it, 
would become converted to the Christian faith, and worship 
in their way, or when we see a private house used by perse¬ 
cuted believers as a place of worship, what form of govern¬ 
ment do we look for in those places ? Why, the same as you 
would expect to see in any other synagogues or churches 
among any other Jews who did not believe in Christ. What 
was there to cause a change ? Did Christ’s doctrines violate 
the forms of Church government ? Not in one word. 

As matters proceeded, in the course of a few years the co¬ 
alescence among the believers would naturally tend more and 
more to an exclusive public worship. This is the natural 
character and course of coalescence. The New Testament 
history does not lead us to conclude, however, that this exclu¬ 
sive worship was known for several years, probably for six or 
eight years or more after the death of Christ. But it is quite 
likely that it occurred in places, and to some extent, at an 
earlier period. 

It must be remembered that this exclusive worship was the 
result, not of any Christian precepts or doctrines, but of oppo- 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


91 


sition and persecution on the part of the unbelieving Jews, 
encouraged by the natural cohesion and tendencies of reli¬ 
gious coalescence. 

But this mingling of worship, and non-institution of new 
and radical forms of Church government, did by no means 
interfere with the exclusiveness of religious association, fellow¬ 
ship, and compact which the Scriptures enjoin. Unbelievers 
mingle in public Christian worship now: they take part often¬ 
times in the forms of worship, and are the subjects, negatively, 
of Church government. Religious coherence, fellowship, 
brotherly love, and unity of the Spirit, do not relate to any 
particular form of Church government; nor do' they negative 
the idea that the members of such associations may belong to 
Church governments widely differing from each other in form. 

The apostles pursued the most natural and simple course 
imaginable. They taught religion — boldly, industriously. 
But they did not teach upon the subject of ecclesiastical 
jurisprudence, for the very simple reason that they had 
nothing to teach. As official propagators of the gospel, they 
had not been instructed on the subject; and as individual 
Christians or believers, they saw nothing necessary to be 
taught. Their business was to “ preach the gospel.” The 
preaching of the gospel, however, came incidentally in con¬ 
flict with any serious, positive errors in Church government 
of a moral nature which might chance to exist, because it 
regulated morals everywhere. But it came, at that time, far, 
far less in conflict with errors of this kind than did the 
preaching of the gospel by Luther in the Reformation of the 
sixteenth century; and probably not more than did the 
preaching of the same truths in that of the eighteenth century 
by Wesley. 

The terms church and synagogue are, in the idiom of our 
language, synonymous. It is, therefore, not improper to 
speak of Jewish churches and Christian synagogues, when 


92 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


our remarks are located in such times as to apply the terms 
conversely. A name is not a thing: it is only the designa¬ 
tion of a thing. Custom has applied the term church to the 
Christian assembly, and synagogue to the Jewish, which is all 
right enough. Understanding the terms, then, in this way, I 
was just going to point out a difference, in one respect, which 
must have been observable between the Jewish and Christian 
Churches after the latter came to have the control of their 
own assemblies, or after there came to be a clear and distinc¬ 
tive difference between the two kinds of assemblies. 

The government of the synagogue was altogether Jewish. 
It was not Human. The Jews were in a state of colonial 
vassalage to the Homans. Hut the Homans permitted the 
Jews to have their own laws in operation in all minor matters 
relating to religion and other things; but they kept a watch¬ 
ful eye over all public assemblies and public movements of 
the Jews. Hence the ruler of the synagogue was either a 
Roman officer, or one whom they approved. It was his duty 
to judge of all petty offences, either criminal, civil, or reli¬ 
gious. Now, the Jewish high-priests, who were both civil and 
ecclesiastical officers, would not recognize as legal any syna¬ 
gogues which were under the control and supervision of 
Christian Jews. And hence they would not be likely to have 
a regularly authorized “ruler,” recognized by the Jewish and 
Homan governments, to preside over them; and so they had 
to dispense with the services of that officer. 

This was an exigency that arose in the course of events. 
It was not sought for or attempted to be brought about by any 
one. But so it was; and their synagogues or churches had 
to be conducted without a “ ruler.” But this change occa¬ 
sioned no serious difficulty. There was a plain, simple, and 
natural course which lay out before them. The civil and 
criminal jurisdiction of this officer must necessarily abate 
altogether. Their synagogues, when they became exclusively 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


93 


such, had no connection with the government, and they could 
not, therefore, if they had desired it, punish civil or criminal 
offences. But the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of this officer 
could be easily retained, and his duties would naturally de¬ 
volve upon the highest officer they had, viz., the “angel,” 
the office answering to that of our minister. 

It is by omitting to notice and trace these plain and simple 
circumstances, that persons have suffered themselves to be led 
into the notion that a system of high episcopal rule was set 
up and established in the primitive Church. 

The office of “ruler” ceased in the early churches, for the 
simple reason that connection with the government ceased in 
regard to them. But the apostles and early disciples merely 
kept along , in ecclesiastical matters, in the same way they 
had been accustomed to all their lives, with only such inci¬ 
dental changes as were naturally called for, or superinduced 
by the circumstances which surrounded them. 

Their business was to “ preach the gospel to every creature” 
effectually. 

From all the respectable histories of the early Church, in¬ 
spired and uninspired, which have met my eye, I am able to 
find nothing that will not easily harmonize with all the fore¬ 
going views. They only, in my judgment, carry the argu¬ 
ment and the reader a little farther onward than they have 
been accustomed to travel. 

Milman says, (History, page 172,) “The synagogue and the 
church became more and more distinct, till they stood opposed 
in irreconcilable hostility.” 


94 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

SYNOPTIC YIEW OF THE EARLY CHURCH. 

The Christian Church in the first century lies in extreme 
historic obscurity. The sacred record touches it but very 
lightly here and there; and the uninspired history—all that 
is regarded by the learned as authentic—scarcely reaches it. 
A very few scattering facts is all that we have. 

For eight years or more, the gospel was preached exclusively 
to Jews. There appears, up to this time, not a thought 
to have entered the minds of the apostles, or any of the 
disciples, that it was ever to be preached to any one else. 
When Peter, at this time, was induced, by extraordinary 
revelation, to go and preach to Cornelius, it was regarded 
as highly sacrilegious, until the matter was fully explained. 
So that up to this time, Christianity — even its religion — 
was but very imperfectly understood and practiced. And 
Cornelius, though a Gentile, was not a pagan. He was a 
Proselyte of the Gate. That is, he had renounced idolatry 
and embraced Judaism without circumcision. The objection 
to his becoming a Christian, or having the gospel preached to 
him, was not that he was a Gentile, but that he was not cir¬ 
cumcised. 

It is, then, not easy to believe that the apostles were so per¬ 
fectly versed in Christian jurisprudence as to have set up a 
new and finished system thereof, when they were so poorly 
versed in Christianity itself. The views of the apostles opened 



THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


95 


out gradually, slowly, and regularly before them. They had 
been preaching now eleven years, and yet it was an en¬ 
tirely new idea to them that Christianity was to be a universal 
religion. 

The first Christian “Church’’ that was known to exist was 
at Jerusalem. This was a matter of course, for they began 
to preach at Jerusalem. The Church , however, was merely 
this, that in that city were found a number of persons who 
believed in Christ. That simple fact alone was sufficient to 
entitle these persons, when spoken of in the aggregate, to be 
called a Church. The term Church was then and has ever 
since been applied to a company or association of Christians. 
If the disciples or believers at Jerusalem were legal believers 
— true disciples — and associated together as such in the 
worship and ordinances of Christ, how was it possible for 
them to be any thing less or any thing else than a church ? 
This is not only the true meaning of the word, according to 
its most correct etymology, but it has for thousands of years 
been popularly and critically used as such. 

Nothing whatever is known as to the origin of the Church 
at Rome. Milman says : “The history of the Roman com¬ 
munity is most remarkable. It grew up in silence, founded 
by some unknown teachers.” (History, p. 171.) Its planting 
has been attributed to Peter, and to Paul, and to both. Mil- 
man, in a foot-note at page 171, says: “ The foundation of 
the Church of Rome by either St. Peter or St. Paul is utterly 
irreconcilable with any reasonable view of the apostolic his¬ 
tory. It is very certain that Paul had never been at Rome 
when he wrote his epistle to the brethren there, if he was the 
author of its first chapter.” Dr. Taylor, quoted by Dr. Clarke, 
says: “ Paul had never been at Rome when he wrote this 
letter.” Watson says the same thing. Dictionary, p. 826. 

Dr. Milman thinks the conversion of Jews at Rome was 
the result of the return there of persons who were at Jem- 


96 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


salem on the day of Pentecost. Watson advances the same 
opinion. 

The Epistle to the Romans was written twenty-five years 
after the death of Christ. The existence of the Church at 
Rome was well known generally throughout Palestine and 
elsewhere; and the character of the brethren there for piety 
was quite celebrated. Rom. i. 8. It seems to be conceded 
on all hands that if any apostle ever had visited Rome before 
this time, it was Peter or Paul. And that Peter did so is 
held by none but Romish partisans to uphold the supremacy 
of Peter; and that Paul did not, we have his own statements. 
Then, who “founded” or “organized” the Church at Rome? 
To a straight-thinking, unsophisticated person, this looks very 
plain, and well chimes in with all the history we have on 'the 
subject. 

When the three thousand were converted on the first 
preaching of Peter at Jerusalem, it is most likely that the 
number included some of the Jews who resided in Rome. 
They returned home believers in Christ. And were they 
then not a Church? Why not? They were a company of 
believers following Christ. If they united themselves together 
in an association, they were a Church. And as they continued 
to pray, and worship, and preach, the Church would increase 
until their faith would be spoken of, as St. Paul remarks, 
throughout the whole world. 

This, or something nearly like it, must have been the way the 
Church of Rome began. It was the way most of the Churches, 
or at least many of them, originated in that early day. 

But it may be asked, Where was their preacher ? who was 
he? Let the point be borne in mind for the present, and 
the question will find an answer in the progress of these 
chapters. It would be out of place to enlarge upon that 
point here. 

There was, then, no legal necessity for the presence or offi- 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


97 


cial ministrations of an apostle at the origination or com¬ 
mencement of a Church at any particular place, in the early 
clays of Christianity. Why could there be any greater neces¬ 
sity for such ministrations, in a strictly legal point of view, 
than there is for the same thing now ? Suppose a few be¬ 
lievers now, in any particular town or neighborhood, were to 
meet together and pray, and exhort, and worship God, after 
the Bible directions, and others join them, and they continue 
on to be faithful Christians, and sinners be converted among 
them, etc. Is that not a Church to all intents and purposes? 

We must be careful that we do not get into a controversy 
with the Almighty. We may not debate legal questions with 
God. An association of men of any kind, where the Holy 
Spirit vouchsafes to make his presence and approval known— 
where God works in reviving and extending his grace—is a 
Church. Metaphysicians cannot, if they try till doomsday, 
make a difference between a Church and a u true Church,” or 
a legal Church. A Church is a true Church and a legal 
Church. That which is untrue or illegal , is spurious and 
void. A fig for all the technical and legal objections to a 
Church which has the plain pronunciations of the Lord God 
in its favor ! We may not stop to make any inquiry what¬ 
ever into the merits or character of any controversy, however 
proper or improper it may appear, between men and God. 

Neither was there any legal necessity for the presence of 
the apostles at any of the early Churches, for the transaction 
of any ecclesiastical business. What is called u ecclesiastical 
authority,” was but little thought of in those times. There 
was no strife for power, nor did any particular honor attach to 
its exercise or custody. 

If it became necessary, or was deemed expedient, to elect 
one or more bishops, (a bishop was a pastor,) it was done 
by popular designation; and the elders or bishops present, 
with the wisest and most pious of the brethren, would 
5 


98 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


solemnly and publicly ordain or set apart sucli minister or min¬ 
isters, by the imposition of hands. 

In the exercise of discipline, the most natural and simple 
course was pursued. In the synagogue-worship, under the 
supervision of the civil authority, the exercise of Church dis¬ 
cipline was vested in the ruler of the synagogue. As the 
Christian assemblies became entirely distinct from all civil 
recognition, they of course had no “ ruler •” but his authority, 
so far as it was strictly ecclesiastical, it is easy to see, would 
naturally fall upon the “ angel,” who was the bishop or pastor. 
But the bishop could not exercise this authority by personal 
investiture, as the ruler did. He could only exercise it in 
the character of a president. This is obvious, from the follow¬ 
ing considerations: 

1st. He had no means of enforcing his decisions. 

2d. He could not reasonably suppose—or others in his be¬ 
half—that the whole Church would in all cases acquiesce 
peremptorily in his decisions, unless they had—each Church 
for itself—solemnly agreed to do so, and had thus delegated 
to him this authority. 

3d. The circumstances of danger, persecution, insult, in¬ 
jury, and interference, to which the disciples were constantly 
exposed, rendered it absolutely necessary for them to adhere 
to each other in the closest possible compact. Any govern¬ 
ment, therefore, which they might have among themselves, 
unauthorized by the laws of the land, must necessarily be of a 
very popular kind. 

Accordingly, we hear Lord Chancellor King remark as fol¬ 
lows: “Now, the manner of electing a bishop I find to be 
this: When a parish or bishopric was vacant, through the 
death of the incumbent, all the members of that parish, both 
clergy and laity, met together in the church, commonly to 
choose a fit person for his successor, to whom they might com¬ 
mit the care and government of the Church.” See Primitive 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


99 


Church, New York ed., p. 55 And so Eusebius, quoted by 
Lord King, says, “Upon the election of a bishop for the 
Church at Jerusalcm, it was by the compulsion or choice of 
the members of that Church.” Lib. 6, chap. 11, p. 312. 
And also Cyprian, after explaining how Fabianus was elected, 
says that “all the people cried out with one mind and soul 
that Fabianus was worthy of the bishopric.” Lib. 6, chap. 
28, p. 229. He also remarks, in regard to his successor, 
Cornelius, that he “ was elected by the suffrage of the clergy 
and laity.” Epis. 67, sec. 2, p. 198. “The same method 
being observed in the deposition of a bishop as in his elec¬ 
tion.” Primitive Church, p. 103. 

We also find that the laity participated in all the actions 
of the Church of importance, in reference to accusations of 
immorality against members. 

“And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the 
Church. But if he neglect to hear the Church, let him be 
unto thee as a heathen man and a publican.” Matt, xviii. 
17. This is high authority. “ Tell it unto the Church ,” and 
not to any particular officer or officers of the Church, as such. 
The information might be conveyed to the Church through 
any channel the Church might designate or recognize for that 
purpose; and most likely this would be some officer of the 
Church. And furthermore, what course the Church would 
adopt, in investigating and disposing of the matter, is another 
question. They might, or they might not, place it in the hands 
of certain functionaries for adjustment. But the foregoing 
Divine directions are express and conclusive, that the right to 
take cognizance, and finally to dispose of such offences, is with 
the Church , and not with any person or persons who might 
hold any offices in the Church, considered as officers. 

Again : “ Therefore, put away from among yourselves that 
wicked person.” 1 Cor. v. 13. This remark is addressed to 
the Church. Put him away from among yourselves. But the 

) 

> ) 

> > > 

> > 

> > > 


100 


TI1E ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


form of proceeding by which they will do this, is another 
question. 

“ Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which 
are spiritual restore such an one in the spirit of meekness.” 

Gal. vi. 1. 

“We command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother 
that walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition which ye 
received of us.” 2 Thess. iii. 6. 

That the early Churches exercised the right of dealing with 
disorderly persons directly, for the most part, without delegat¬ 
ing its authority to special functionaries, is pretty clear, and 
cannot well be doubted. 

u It is, therefore, the assembly of the people which chose 
their own rulers and teachers, or received them, by a free and 
authoritative consent, when recommended by others. The 
same people rejected or confirmed, by their suffrages, the laws 
that were proposed to them by their rulers, to the assembly; 
excommunicated profligate and unworthy members of the 
Church; restored the penitent to their forfeited privileges; 
passed judgment upon the different subjects of controversy 
and dissension that arose in the community; examined and 
decided the disputes which happened between elders and 
deacons; and, in a word, exercised all the authority which 
belongs to such as are invested with the sovereign power.” 
—MosheinTs Ecclesiastical History, vol. i., p. 87. 

From this beginning, Christianity and Christian Churches 
spread and extended over the world. The apostles, one by 
one, were soon swept away. The Church continued to pros¬ 
per, and its influence to extend. The several Churches were 
measurably independent of each other. They had no legal 
or official correspondence, in a strictly synodical sense. The 
bishop had charge of his own Church, but had nothing to do 
with any other. 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


101 


Synods were first known in Greece, in the second century. 
Mosheim says, “ It was only in the second century that the 
custom of holding councils commenced in Greece, from whence 
it soon spread through the other provinces.” (Ecclesiastical 
History, vol. i. p. 93.) Watson says the first ecclesiastical 
council, except the meeting of the Church at Jerusalem, was 
held in the middle of the second century. 

The meeting of the “apostles and elders” at Jerusalem, 
where they determined the question propounded by the bre¬ 
thren at Antioch, respecting the necessity of circumcision, 
was not a council, in any ecclesiastical sense. It was a meet¬ 
ing of the principal persons in the Church or Churches at 
Jerusalem. 

Christianity had now been publicly preached, since the 
death of the Saviour, twenty years. There were Christians 
and Christian Churches throughout Palestine, and in foreign 
countries. They must have amounted to hundreds. That 
any of these Churches were represented in this so-called 
u council,” there is not the slightest testimony. It would 
have required, perhaps, a year’s time to have convened such 
a delegation; whereas, we find that “the apostles and elders 
came together for to consider of this matter” immediately 
upon the arrival of the messengers from Antioch. Jerusalem 
was really, but informally, the head-quarters of Christianity. 
It was oldest at that place : there were, no doubt, more aged 
and experienced disciples there than would be likely found at 
any other place; and some of the apostles were no doubt gene¬ 
rally if not constantly found there. Hence, the disciples at 
Antioch would naturally send to Jerusalem for a reliable solu¬ 
tion of this question. The meeting was composed of the 
leading and most prominent brethren at Jerusalem. 

Supposed expediency, no doubt for good, brought about the 
custom of several churches, or the official members of several 


( 


102 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


churches, meeting together to make regulations for their 
mutual advantage. This is very natural. 

In process of time, the bishops having charge of the churches 
in the principal cities, acquired considerable dignity. They 
claimed superiority over those in the smaller towns, or in the 
country; and this dignity or superiority was generally tacitly 
conceded to them. Not that they had any legal right that 
others had not; but their station was esteemed higher, and in 
many ways they were deemed superior. The bishop of the 
largest and most influential church must be president at these 
synods or conferences; and then at the councils, which were 
a still larger convocation of churches, there began to be con¬ 
tention as to which church had the right to have its bishop 
for president. 

The delegates, too, from the churches, began to be delegates 
by right, or rather regular members of these synods; and 
instead of representing the will and interests of their respect¬ 
ive churches, they attended chiefly to their own affairs; and 
so, one step upward in the scale of dignity and power, made 
another so much the more necessary, in their estimation. 

It is not difficult to see that as these various offices—which 
were certainly badges of distinction—would pass from one 
man to another, as age succeeded age, at a time, too, when 
popular ignorance and superstitious notions respecting eccle¬ 
siastical dignity were much more prevalent than they are here 
in these days, that what was once regarded as only a mark of 
honor, would after a while become nearly, and then altogether, 
a vested right. 

The bishops, especially those of the cities, began to be 
bishops indeed, with no little authority. 

It has been asked by writers who were trying to sustain 
high prelacy, when this great change in the authority of 
bishops came about ? When did they change from the hum- 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


103 


ble pastor of a congregation of Christians, to the high pre¬ 
tensions they were known to possess in the fifth and sixth 
centuries, and afterwards ? And they claim that unless the 
time is given when this 11 revolution,” as they call it, took 
place, that they have a right to conclude that it did not take 
place at all, and that “ bishops” had these powers from the 
beginning. 

The same kind of argument would bring us to the conclu¬ 
sion that unless the time can be pointed out when the weather 
changed from midsummer to midwinter, that it was always 
winter, because it now is; or, unless you can show when a person 
changed from childhood to manhood, you must conclude that 
he was always a man, because he is a man now. When did 
the Pope of Rome become pope? We know that this power 
in the bishops of Rome was more than five hundred years in 
the course of a gradual acquisition. As Jerome says in 
regard to the acquisition of power by the bishops, it was “by 
little and little.” That is the most natural and reasonable 
mode in which the thing might be expected to come about; 
and it also fully agrees with all the authentic history we have 
on the subject. 

The city churches always took the lead. Those in the 
country had derived their existence from them, and they 
naturally looked to them for support, counsel, encouragement, 
etc. In case of doubt or dispute in or amongst the country 
or village churches, the question would naturally be referred to 
the city church, or rather, as the matter really became after 
a while, to the city bishop. 

This advice and counsel would soon acquire the character 
of oversight, superintendence, and jurisdiction. 

So that it is easy for the mind to trace, in those times and 
under those circumstances—which will be more enlarged upon 
in future chapters—the gradual, almost imperceptible, but 
sure progress of authority from the humble and pious pastor 


104 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


of a handful of Christians, on through several ages, and up¬ 
ward to the prerogatives of episcopal rule and dominion over 
the clergy and laity of a whole country surrounding a city. 

At length, as Christianity advanced and became influential, 
questions arose between these city bishops as to the extent of 
their several powers and jurisdictions. These questions did 
not proceed far, however, before they became settled, so far 
as the smaller cities were concerned, by the Metropolitan 
question. 

The Council of Nice, in 325, and of Antioch, in 341, con¬ 
centrated and extended episcopal rule still farther. The 
former declared that u Bishops in the provinces should be 
subject to the Metropolitanand that “ no one should be 
appointed bishop without the consent of the Metropolitan.” 
This regulation was followed up in the Western Church at a 
somewhat later period; so episcopal rule became vested in the 
bishops of Jerusalem, Antioch, Caesarea, Alexandria, Ephe¬ 
sus, Corinth, Rome, Carthage, Lyons, and a few other cities 
that claimed to be each a metropolis. 

But the ambition of ambitious men was not yet satisfied. 
Episcopal rule was not sufficiently centralized for those in the 
larger cities. The Metropolitans had already acquired more 
or less of civil power, which tended still further to stimulate 
their ambition. In the fifth and sixth centuries, the patri¬ 
archal government arose; and Constantinople, Rome, Antioch, 
and Alexandria, became the seats of those primates who bore 
the title of Patriarch. Each one had all the episcopal author¬ 
ity he could grasp, and all the civil power he could wrench 
from the seats of political jurisdiction, which was no little 
indeed. 

But the end was not yet. Power was still divided; and in 
the strife for supremacy, Alexandria and Antioch had to give 
way, and leave the field to Rome and Constantinople. Here 
was the celebrated and bitter and long-contested strife for 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


105 


universal primacy. This contest mingled with the greatest 
political events of those ages. In the fifth and sixth centuries, 
it became settled in the west in favor of Rome; and in the 
course of the seventh, the east was obliged to give way, and 
so the supremacy of the pope and the papal system became 
established. 

And thus the Church continued under the rule of Popery 
until God, in his providence, diffused more light over the 
world; and until a man, endued with more intrepid bravery, 
true heroism, and dauntless courage, than any other man 
known to history, rose in apparently superhuman strength, 
and, in the name of simple, single truth, challenged the 
world to combat. At Worms, the only battle-field which is 
truly and transcendently great—second only to Calvary— 
Martin Luther broke the spell of priestcraft, excommunicated 
the pope, subdued the emperor, opened to the world the light 
of truth, and gave back to the Church her long-lost effulgence 
and beauty. 


5 * 


106 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


CHAPTER IX. 

A MORE GENERAL VIEW OF THE CHARACTER OF THE 

APOSTOLIC CHURCH. 

The Church dates from the call of Abraham. The end of 
all religion is the salvation of man; and the end and object 
of a Church is the more ready promotion and encouragement 
of religion. 

God had set himself about the work of salvation; not sal¬ 
vation by prerogative; for if so, then there were no need of 
a Church or of other means of grace or instrumentalities of 
religion. He set himself about the work of religion for men, 
if we may so compare things, in the same way in which a wise 
and judicious missionary would proceed in a heathen country, 
where all true religion was utterly unknown. He adapted 
his plans to meet the character and circumstances of the 
people whose salvation he designed to bring about. 

It is neither irreverence nor disparagement to the Divine 
administration to say, that the antediluvian scheme of salva¬ 
tion was a failure. Men might have been saved under it, 
hut they would not, and they were not. And further and 
more extensive means of salvation were instituted. 

In the Divine economy, it was determined to begin, as it 
were, on a small scale: to instruct, first, a single family, and 
originate there a proper sense of obligation to God, and make 
him and his posterity missionaries for the teaching of others. 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 107 

Abraham was directed by direct miraculous communication; 
but this is not religion. 

The whole world was sunk in idolatry and gross ignorance 
of God, save Abraham and his family. And their religion 
became very superficial indeed, after the death of their ances¬ 
tor. An overruling Providence suffered them to be put in 
sore bondage, in order that they might be taught a deep and 
lasting lesson of their need of Almighty protection. 

Dependence upon God, and trust in him, as a merciful 
benefactor, were further taught them in the circumstances of 
their deliverance from bondage to the Egyptian king, and 
restoration to the liberty and privileges they enjoyed under 
Moses. 

Thus it was that God, in dealing with the Israelites, in 
instilling into them the rudiments of religion, began at the 
beginning. His providence, in overruling the general condi¬ 
tion of Israel, corresponded with his more particular teach¬ 
ing respecting the special services he required of them. Thus 
he began at the beginning, taking the first step first, and the 
next next, improving upon the past, and enlarging, as matters 
proceeded, in the most skilful and philosophic manner imagi¬ 
nable. 

The Divine patience, prudence, skill, and wisdom mani¬ 
fested in these eclectic and elementary teachings of the first 
principles of religion, call for the profoundest admiration of 
men and angels. 

The captivity in Babylon served, among other purposes, to 
disseminate these religious teachings to considerable extent, 
among other nations, the fruit of which was seen in the 
favorable effect observed in the Hellenistic Jews, and among 
the Gentiles, in the days of the opening of a purer religion. 

But all this was a physical religion. It was a religion of 
facts, and acts, and things; and therefore it was superficial 
and imperfect. It was merely elementary. It bore the same 


108 THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 

relation to religion proper that the spelling-book and the 
black-board do to the scholar in mature life. The system is 
expressly spoken of as a schoolmaster to lead us to Christ. 

And in the fulness of time—that is, at the proper time— 
that is, when the state of religion among the Jews and the 
world made things ready—the Saviour made his actual appear¬ 
ance in the world. 

Now, for the first time, the condition of things in the 
Church of the Jews, and out in the world, was such, that 
religion proper—spiritual religion, could safely, with good 
prospect of success, be introduced into the world. 

There was nothing wrong in Judaism proper, no more than 
there is in a boy’s passing through the primary and sophomore 
classes before he graduates. The wrong now consists in obsti¬ 
nately clinging to the physical or primary religion, when the 
spiritual religion is offered. 

The inherent virtues of the primary religion, or that which 
made it acceptable to God, were seen in its ordinances: in 
their administration, reception, and use. Now, the ordi¬ 
nances are not taken away, but their position is very mate¬ 
rially changed. In the former, they were the primary, funda¬ 
mental things : now they are only subsidiary and secondary. 

It was a great change from Judaism to Christianity. The 
first Church was a new, a very new thing in the world. It 
was the greatest step that ever the world took at once. 
To bring the Jews, even a small portion of them, to mount 
so high a platform as the Christian faith, required all the skill, 
and enterprise, and wisdom, and power of Omnipotent super¬ 
vision and miraculous interposition. 

The advent of the Saviour, and his agency in these high 
and profoundly interesting scenes and performances, found the 
circumstances of the Jews—their moral, civil, educational, 
military, political, and religious circumstances—as they 
chanced to be. Their connection with the Roman govern- 


TIIE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


109 


ment was one of the accidents of the times. But all these 
things were to be carefully noted, observed, and worked up 
to, in setting this great spiritual machinery agoing. So great 
was the mental and spiritual work of this auspicious and 
most conspicuous period, that the very ground itself reeled 
under the burden of something, it knew not what. 

God was now fixing the massive fastenings of TRUTH 
solidly in the world. For truth and error are really the only 
antagonist principles known to the universe, and the only 
instruments the soul can feel. Truth had made its entrance 
into the world, and must have place. And error, with all its 
schoolboy notions of things, however honestly conceived, in 
its juvenile twilight, must give way. 

What great subject has Truth now in hand, and in relation 
to which it is proclaiming its mighty fiat ? What is to be set 
right now, that has never been right before ? Four thousand 
years of preparation and arrangement for the establishment 
of what ? 

The arrangement of a suitable form for the mere govern¬ 
ment of a few disciples in Palestine ? If a conception so infin¬ 
itely liliputian could be so distinguished, it is insulting to 
the Divine administration. 

Upon this rock —“ Thou art the Christ, the Son of the liv¬ 
ing God”—upon this rock—larger, solider, than the under 
pillars of nature—upon this rock I will build my Church. 

And so he did. Then—there—by his life,—by his blood, 
—by his burial and resurrection,—by his ascension up where 
he was before,—by and in these things he did build his 
Church: he did give foundation and moveless solidity to his 
TRUTH. 

That truth is here now. It is in the heart of the Christian. 
It is in the pith and marrow of the Church. It is in, and 
constitutes the essence of the salvation of man. It is a work 
worthy of God. It is a work that will do him honor—un- 


110 THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 

speakable honor—in the presence of cherubim and seraphim, 
in the hoary years of eternity. 

But the mere organization of Christian people into some 
particular form of government, in these ages, has a mere 
chronological relation to those of succeeding years. While 
the “ Church’’ then planted by the right hand of God—that 
is, the truth thus fastened upon and made patent in the 
world respecting human salvation—is linked to the present by 
the span of the hand of the Almighty. 

The slightly celebrated “ Tracts for the Times,” New York 
edition, page 6, of volume i., tell us that “the sacraments , 
not preaching , are the sources of Divine grace.” 

If this be true, then, indeed, it would seem that the manner 
in which the Church was officered —the precise form of its 
organization—the exact functions and powers to be placed 
here and there for the performance and regulation of this and 
of that means of grace, operating between God and the 
people, are the great and important matters respecting the 
Church. 

But if, on the contrary, it be true that the gospel itself is 
the power of God unto salvation—that God manifests his 
power of salvation in the gospel and not in the sacraments 
thereof—then the matter is materially changed, and the 
preaching of the gospel becomes the great means, in the 
hands of men, for man’s salvation. 

This seems to be the main question which is to determine 
the character of the original Church. 

If “ to administer and receive Christ’s mystical body and 
blood” was “ the great work which Christians did every 
day,” to use the language of the same Tracts, at page 175, as 
quoted from Bishop Beveridge, then, indeed, the end of 
Church organization is a thing quite different from what has 
been supposed in all Christendom in all time. Then the 
virtue of the administration of the sacraments, which is the 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


Ill 


same thing as the true or real communication of God’s grace, 
depends upon the u mystical ” character of the officer whose 
hands convey the elements in which the sacraments are com¬ 
municated. 

And then, indeed, a sacrament is no longer an obligation , 
taken personally by him who receives the element, which is 
the mere instrument or symbol of its use; but what we are 
wont to regard as the mere element or symbol—viz., mere 
common water, and mere common bread and wine—becomes 
the sacrament itself. And the mystic administration of it 
gives to it—that is, to the water, the bread, and the wine—the 
virtue and power of almighty grace ! Either the elements 
themselves—the water, bread, and wine—become mystically 
changed into grace, essentially and substantively, which is 
transubstantiation, or the grace of God is conveyed in the 
elements as the only and proper vehicle of transmission, which 
is consubstantiation. 

But, on the contrary, if the gospel be the power of God’s 
saving grace, according to St. Paul, then the matter becomes 
materially changed. The gospel is the good news—the wel¬ 
come information—the truth, which Christ published. And 
the dissemination—the republication—the diffusion—the com¬ 
municating hither and thither—the preaching of this news, 
this word, this truth, becomes the u great work” in the salva¬ 
tion of the world. 

Either the sacraments or the gospel are the power of God 
unto salvation. Romanists, a few high churchmen, and a still 
lesser number of Baptists, and perhaps a few other exclusives, 
tell us that the grace of God is found in the water, and in the 
bread and wine; but the apostle, and the whole scope of 
biblical teaching, tell us the contrary. 

The Saviour, just before his ascension, commanded his 
apostles to go into all the world and disciple all nations. 
And what particular thing did he tell them to do in order to 


112 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


tills end ? He told them to u preach the gospel.” 
St. Paul regarded the administration of the sacraments of 
such comparative non-importance, that he said he was not 
sent to baptize, but to preach : that is, that the preaching 
was the great and important work which so constantly en¬ 
gaged his attention, that the administration of the sacraments 
must be attended to by others. 

In the primitive days of the Church these matters were all 
well understood. The Church consisted of the disciples in 
association , a mere company of disciples, preachers, and 
people. There was no more of mystical character attaching 
to the association as such, than to the association of other 
Jews or other people. They preached and believed the great 
truth. This was their peculiarity. 

The Church of ordinances—the Church in which ordinances 
and sacraments were the sources and channels of God’s grace 
—was the Church of the Jews. But this Church is now 
superseded by a more intelligible and intelligent truth-commu¬ 
nicating Church, in which the gospel preached is the great 
power of God. 

The original Church was a company, or in its subdivision 
several companies of Jews, who were disciples of Christ, or, 
as they were afterwards called, Christians, which consisted of 
preachers and people. Their object and aim as Christians, 
or disciples, was to increase religion in their own hearts, and 
extend it over the world in the hearts of others. 

Their very associatioji itself was, like other natural and pru¬ 
dential measures, a mere natural and prudential measure. 

If the primitive Christians regarded the manner of their 
association , externally considered—the distribution of official 
duties—the assignment of this duty to this Church officer, 
and of that duty to that—as the important matter, or as an 
essentially important matter in the enterprise of religion, it is 
utterly unaccountable that they did not do two things: first, 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


113 


pursue one uniform and invariable course themselves in re¬ 
spect thereto; and, secondly, leave us upon the record a pre¬ 
scribed form for us to copy. 

But that they did neither of these is a transparent truth. 

We conclude, then, that the character of the primitive 
Church is to be sought for in the principles of their religion, 
and not in the mode of their association. 


114 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


PART TWO. 

®Inud] ffilitg an if irhuighs. 


CHAPTER I. 

THE TEST OF A CIIURCIl’S VALIDITY. 

The Churcli of England, the Protestant Episcopal Church, 
and the Methodist Churches, define a Church as follows: 

“A congregation of faithful men, in which the pure word 
of God is preached, and the sacraments duly administered 
according to Christ’s ordinances in all those things that of 
necessity are requisite to the same.” 

That is, perhaps, as correct a brief definition as need be 
given. Probably no objection could be made to it. A con¬ 
gregation of faithful men—not a thousand confederate con¬ 
gregations, but a congregation. This is what a Church was 
in the days of the apostles, and it is presumed it will not be 
pretended that any human authority is competent to change 
materially, much less radically or wholly, the character of a 
Divine institution, as it was Divinely recognized and spoken of. 

Looking then, at one of these Churches, or u congrega¬ 
tions,” how are we to determine whether it is or is not a true 
and valid Church of Christ? 

It was said in a previous chapter, that there are but two 



THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


115 


inodes in which ecclesiastical writers undertake to determine 
this question; and it might he added, that they are the only 
two modes in which the question is capable of being looked 
into. The one is by the validity of the orders of the 
Church’s ministers; and the other is by comparing the 
Church itself with the Scriptures. Let us look at these two 
things separately and carefully. 

We will begin with the first. Here is an association of 
persons, with the man they call their minister at their head, 
claiming to be a Church of Christ. And we first inquire 
whether this minister has proper orders; and we find that he 
was ordained by a certain other minister, Mr. A. But this 
does not settle the question; for if the ordination, exclu¬ 
sively considered, makes him a minister, then the same ques¬ 
tion arises in regard to the orders of his ordainer. And we 
make the same inquiry in regard to him; and then in regard 
to his ordainer, and his, and his, and his, on, on, and where 
are we to stop? We cannot stop safely until we arrive at a 
person in the chain whose orders do not depend upon those 
of any other minister. And we cannot, evidently, find such 
a person until we arrive at an apostle, eighteen hundred years 
back. This is apostolic succession. 

It is true that this line of orders, as we have just now 
traced it, does not run in a channel of bishops , as the pre- 
latist contends it must; but still it is apostolic succession, 
running in the common body of ordained ministers. 

By this mode of ascertaining the validity of a Church, it is 
evident we cannot avoid this most baseless of all theories ever 
attempted to be taught by sensible men. An improper ordi¬ 
nation at any one point in the history of the Church is as 
fatal as at any other point—the next link back from our pre¬ 
sent minister, or the hundredth one above that. What can be 
more preposterous than the idea that an ordination supposed 
to have been performed a hundred or a thousand years ago, 


116 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


whether it was correctly or incorrectly performed, or whether 
in truth it was or was not performed at all, can materially 
affect the character of men, either individually or collectively 
considered, who live in the present day ? 

Do we dream our theology ? No. Our theology must 
come from the Bible. The Bible is the test of every thing 
concerning religion. The Bible is the word of God, and 
the only word of God we have on this subject. It is the 
sole test of all doctrines, and the sole arbiter of all religious 
questions. But for the Bible, we could have no knowledge of 
the necessity or usefulness of either a Church or a ministry. We 
must go there, and there only, to ascertain the essential char¬ 
acter of either, or of any thing else pertaining to the subject of 
religion. An act that corresponds with the description of 
repentance given in the Scriptures, is repentance. An act 
which answers the description of prayer, there found, is prayer. 
A person who answers the scriptural description of a minister, 
is a minister. An association of persons which answers the 
scriptural description of a Church, is a Church. Metaphysi¬ 
cal refinements upon the Scriptures amount to nothing. 

We have before us an association of persons claiming to be 
a Church; and in proceeding to examine whether they are or 
are not a Church, truly and properly, the first thing we do is 
to turn right away from the thing to be examined, and search 
up some Church records, made ten, twenty, or forty years ago, 
and inquire therein how, and by whom, some certain indi¬ 
vidual man who chances now to be a minister in this Church, 
or in some other, was ordained to the ministry. Well, we find 
that he was ordained by some one who was or was called a 
bishop, or who was or was called a presbyter. And so we 
may trace back the successive ordinations, either among bish¬ 
ops or presbyters, it matters not a farthing which, until we 
become tired or lost in the musty and irresponsible records of 
Churches, among old forgotten almanacs, or the annals, cor- 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 117 

rect or incorrect as they may be, of bygone ages. And as we 
track np these ordinations, we may be supposed to find or not 
to find a broken place in the chain. If we find what we sup¬ 
pose to be a faulty place in the chain, we conclude that all 
subsequent ordinations hanging upon that one are spurious, 
and the Churches connected therewith are not Churches. Or 
if we can be made to believe that all is right, and the chain 
is complete, then we rejoice in the complete validity of all 
ministers and Churches connected with such ordinations. 

You may trace this line of ordinations in a channel of 
u bishops,” according to the Puseyite doctrine, or in a chan¬ 
nel of “ elders” or u presbyters,” according to some mis¬ 
guided but well-meaning persons who contend for the validity 
of ordinations, and consequent validity of Churches, as based 
upon the doctrine of ministerial parity; or upon the no more 
sound notions of some who appear to think that a large and 
respectable portion of Christendom is dependent for its Chris¬ 
tianity upon the legality of some ordinations received or con¬ 
ferred by Mr. John Wesley, or some other venerated minister 
or ministers of past ages. The one may contend for the 
validity of his Church because of the certainty and validity 
of his ancient ordinations; and the other may contend for 
the validity of his Church because of the certainty and 
validity of his ancient ordinations. 

I am not attempting to take part among these disputants, 
but am trying to look into the doctrine of ministerial author¬ 
ity r , 'personally transmitted , as the basis of Church validity, 
abstractly and by itself. 

In the chronology of bygone ages, we find a man who lived 
a thousand years ago, in a distant part of the world, and who 
has been dead and forgotten nearly as long, and whose name, 
even, is nearly or quite blotted out from the memory of the 
world, and we ascertain that in one official transaction of his 
he acted either ignorantly or wickedly. And because of 


118 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


such ignorance, or wickedness, it matters not which, you and 
I, and our associates, men and women, who are trying to he 
religious and follow Christ, in his Church and in his doctrines, 
are wholly at fault—entirely mistaken—we are no Church— 
we cannot comfort ourselves with the rich promises of the 
Saviour—we are travelling the other way ! 

And this decision is pronounced against us without exam¬ 
ining or looking at us at all. It has not been inquired 
whether we are pious or wicked : whether we observe the com¬ 
mands of Christ or no : whether we are following the Saviour 
or Belial: whether we are u a congregation of faithful men, in 
which the pure word of God is preached, and the sacraments 
duly administered/’ or no; but whether or not some one 
man, who once lived and died, chanced to perform an 
illegal act, either from ignorance or wickedness. Really this 
seems to savor but slightly of the mild benevolence of which 
we read in the Scriptures. 

And, if arguments of this sort are too absurd for sober re¬ 
flection, what are we to think of those arguments which claim 
to show that the Methodist Church is not now a valid Chris¬ 
tian Church, because of some illegal ordination—supposing it 
to be illegal—which Mr. Wesley either received or conferred, 
in England, a hundred years ago ? 

And if the Methodist Church does not and cannot lose its 
proper apostolic character in consequence of some ecclesiasti¬ 
cal error supposed to have been committed by Mr. Wesley in 
performing the rite of ordination, how can it be contended, on 
the other hand, that it lias its proper apostolic character in 
virtue of the legality of such ordinations ? Is not the argu¬ 
ment as good on the one side as the other? 

Is the validity of this Church—the true apostolic character 
of this great integral portion of Christendom—to be tested 
by inquiring into the legality of some official act of Mr. 
Wesley? Is it any more important to inquire into the 


I 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 119 

validity of the orders of Dr. Coke or of Mr. Wesley, in de¬ 
termining the validity of the Methodist Church now, than to 
inquire into the orders of some other ministers, farther back, 
five hundred or a thousand years, from or through whose 
hands Mr. Wesley received his orders? What is the 
difference ? 

We must hold to the doctrine of transmitted authority , 
from minister to minister, and test the validity of an existing 
Church thereby, or we must repudiate that doctrine, and 
apply some other test. 

If a high churchman undertakes to argue against the validity 
of the Methodist Church, or the orders of Methodist ministers, 
from the supposed lack of authority in Mr. Wesley to ordain 
Dr. Coke, we may very properly show that his argument 
amounts to nothing, by showing that a legal apostolic presby¬ 
ter is a legal apostolic bishop. But we may not make such 
an argument for the different purpose of showing that the 
Methodist Church is a legal Church. For, if we essay to test 
the validity of a Church by applying the doctrine of trans¬ 
mitted authority, how can we complain of an opponent for 
holding us to our own doctrines, and requiring us to carry 
them out in the application of such test ? How can we use 
such a test ourselves, and then repudiate the doctrine, when 
the high churchman does the same thing ? 

Then, if the validity of a Christian Church may not be 
tested by a valid, unbroken chain of transmitted authority 
from one ordained minister to another, either in a line of so- 
called bishops or presbyters—for the doctrine is the same in 
either case—then there is left but one other mode in which 
that question may be tested. 

This other mode is to compare it with the Scriptures. We 
go to the company or association of persons claiming to be a 
Church, and we examine it. We inquire into the faith 
which they profess ; the lives which they live; and the official 


120 THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 

acts which they perform. And if wo find that this faith, 
and life, and official duty, conform to the Divine prescription 
for these things — if they are such as constitute a Church 
according to the scriptural description of a Church—then 
they are a Church. We have a Divine model. Now have we 
got a thing to fit the model ? If they be holy men and 
women, live after the Bible, have the gospel preached, and the 
sacraments administered : if they thus square and plumb with 
the straight edge of the word of God, and thus answer the 
infallible description, who dare say they are not a Church ? 

The Church of Christ is not a corporation, as many seem to 
suppose. It does not act by virtue of authority granted to it 
by a special investiture, and transmitted to its present officers. 
Ecclesiastical acts are performed by the direct and immediate 
command of God. God does not command some men, in con¬ 
tradistinction to others, to be a Church. He requires all men 
to be a Church. It is the present duty of all men to step in¬ 
stantly into Church communion. This duty rests equally and 
alike upon all. Some men obey the injunction, and some do 
not. The duty to be a Church is as broad and as patent as 
the duty to tell the truth, or to be benevolent. There is 
nothing special about it. 

How do we determine when men obey the Bible in regard 
to other duties ? We examine their conduct, and see whether 
it conforms to the Divine prescriptions. 

The rights of bodies corporate are determined by examining 
the grant of power, and the identity of the body claiming it. 

But this is not so with the Church. Church duty is uni¬ 
versal duty. And it is worse than nonsense to talk about the 
right of men to perform a duty. 

The question of the validity of a so-called Church, then, 
is the question whether the persons composing the association 
are performing the duty, in that respect, which the Bible 
enjoins. 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


121 


Men who lived in other ages of the Church were subject 
to one and the same rule. Each man was answerable for him¬ 
self. They did or they did not obey the Scriptures in regard 
to its laws respecting Church membership. 

The only thing respecting Church duty or association which 
is special, and not universal, pertains to its ministry. And 
this duty God places here and there by direct and immediate 
appointment. Those who deny the direct and immediate call 
to the ministry by God, must necessarily regard the Church 
in the light of a corporation. 

This is their error. The Church has not the characteristics 
of a corporation, and does not, therefore, look into its past 
history, and the official acts of other men, to determine the 
validity of its present character. 

But we are right — we are Christians — if we carry the 
word of God in our hands, and make it the man of our coun¬ 
sel, and square our faith and our conduct accordingly. We 
are Christians, and therefore we are a Church. 

And, on the other hand, suppose we ourselves—the asso¬ 
ciation of persons in question—are not of the private and offi¬ 
cial stamp prescribed in the Bible. Our minister may have 
been ordained by a presbyter, or a bishop, or an apostle; nay, 
an apostle himself may have been our pastor,—we are not a 
Church—we are at enmity with God. 

The Bible, by an immediate appeal to it, is the test, and 
the only test, of every thing pertaining to religion—to Chris¬ 
tianity—to Churches. By it the minister is tested—by it the 
private Christian is tested—by it the Church is tested. Chro¬ 
nology is not Christianity; nor is there any possible pro¬ 
cess, human or angelic, wise or foolish, by which it may be 
moulded and fashioned into it, or be made to answer in its 
stead. 

It is a mistake to suppose a Church cannot exist without a 
pastor. A Church cannot regularly exist without a pastorate, 
6 



122 THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 

but a temporary or accidental irregularity would not destroy 
the being of any institution. A Church is an association of 
Christians following Christ. 

But suppose, it may be inquired, the minister or pastor of 
a Church be acting in bad faith—how does that alfect the 
Church ? It affects it in the light of a temporary misfortune. 
The minister is not Christ’s minister, and hence the Church 
is temporarily without a pastor. But they are acting in good 
faith. They are Christians. 

But suppose the minister to be acting in good faith, under 
the belief he was properly ordained, but is really not ordained 
legally. What then ? Nothing. The authority to confer 
ordination, as we shall see when we come to examine that 
question, is in the Church. So, if by possibility the act or 
ceremony of ordination was illegal, though supposed to be 
legal at the time, the parties acting in good faith, a recogni¬ 
tion of the act by the party who had the authority to perform 
it necessarily does away the illegality, and it becomes legal by 
the very act of continuous recognition. If a Church has 
authority to confer ordination, it has authority to recognize 
ordination which was supposed to have been conferred. 

In some respects the minister is the servant or agent of the 
Church. This is the relation in so far as the particular Church 
is interested in the question of the minister’s ordination, in 
order that he may properly minister the gospel to them. Well, 
what matters it whether an agent’s power of attorney be legal 
or illegal, as to his principal, so long as such principal re¬ 
ceives and recognizes his agency ? An agent cannot damnify 
his principal by acting under an illegal power of attorney 
given by and still recognized by such principal. Under such 
circumstances, no authority can be illegally exercised. 

So that if the Scriptures be the test of a Church’s validity, 
and not the orders of the minister, as depending upon trans¬ 
mitted authority coming down through some channel or other 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 123 

from the apostles, then their identity as a Church is not dis¬ 
turbed by any historical question respecting the orders of their 
minister, if they both be Christians acting in good faith. 

We must not confound an abstract question that might 
arise as to the validity of the ordination of a certain minister, 
with the present relation of such minister to a particular 
Church as their pastor. If they believe him to be a true 
minister, he is, so far as the question of their being a Church 
is concerned, a true minister. They could not so believe, un¬ 
less they so recognize him, and the recognition is one of the 
chief ends of ordination. 

It may be objected to this doctrine, that it gives to each 
and every congregation the right to ordain their own minister; 
and that this will work disturbance in such Churches as the 
Methodist or Presbyterian organizations. 

Let us see. The Methodist, Presbyterian, and Episcopal 
Churches in this country are federate Churches. The sepa¬ 
rate churches of which the confederation is composed, if they 
ever existed independently out of the confederation, certainly 
had that right. But they have thought best, for supposed 
mutual benefit, to confederate. And one of the original rights 
voluntarily relinquished to the confederacy is the ordaining 
of ministers. The mutual agreement, in terms or otherwise, 
is, that ordination shall be performed by the authority of the 
confederacy. 

This is one of the commonest things among men. Every 
citizen relinquishes some of his natural rights to the govern¬ 
ment under which he lives. His natural right is, to enforce 
justice in his own favor from all men. But he does not now 
possess that right. If I withhold from him his goods or his 
money, he cannot come and take it. He must get the officers 
of the law to do it for him. One of these States cannot levy 
war and regulate commerce. Why ? Because, and only be¬ 
cause she has confederated with the rest of the States in the 


/ 


124 THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 

formation of a general government; and in this compact she 
has relinquished these and many other powers in favor of the 
confederation. This is one of the fundamental laws of asso¬ 
ciation, and applies as well between the separate churches 
and the confederation, as between the individual person and 
the congregational church. 

We conclude, then, that t( a church” is u a congregation.” 
And, in more modern language, a Church is a confederation 
of churches. In either case, their trueness or validity does 
not depend upon the opinions or actions of men away up in 
the former history of the organization, but solely on their 
present conformity to the word of God. The Methodist 
Church is a true Church—or any one of her separate churches 
■—because of its present character, and not because Mr. Wes¬ 
ley or Dr. Coke did or said this or that. Suppose she were 
to depart from the faith once delivered to the saints: would 
the lingering written or unwritten memorials of John Wesley, 
to be found in her archives or recollections, serve to keep in 
her the evangelical vitality ? Ask the word of God what are its 
imperative requisitions. 

We may very properly hold up the orders of Mr. Wesley 
to a high churchman, in reply to his argument , to show that 
our orders are the same as his. But that does not prove 
either Church to be good or bad. 

We hope to speak of ordination in a separate chapter. 


I 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


125 


CHAPTER, II. 

“hear the church.” 

11 Moreover, if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go 
and tell him his fault between thee and him alone : if he shall 
hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. But if he will not 
hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the 
mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be estab¬ 
lished. And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the 
Church; but if he neglect to hear the Church, let him be 
unto thee as a heathen man and a publican. Yerily I say 
unto you, whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in 
heaven; and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed 
in heaven. Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall 
agree on earth as touching any thing that ye shall ask, it shall 
be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. For 
where two or three are gathered together in my name, there 
am I in the midst of them.” Matt, xviii. 15-20. 

Here, beyond all question, the final power of excommu¬ 
nication is lodged in 11 the Church.” If the delinquent 
would not listen to his friend, and then if he would not listen 
to one or two other friends, expostulating and exhorting the 
same thing, then the matter was to be laid before the Church; 
and if he would not hear the Church , he must be expelled 
from the society. 

And now the question is, Who, or where, or what is the 


126 THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 

I 

Church , before whom this information is lodged, and who has 
this power of final disposition ? 

It would seem that the careful reader could scarcely fail 
to find an answer to this question in the foregoing quotation 
from the words of Christ himself. 

“ For where two or three are gathered together in my name, 
there am I in the midst of them.” 

The gathering together of people in the name of Christ, or 
otherwise, is assigned as the reason for the presence or 
absence of Christ from such assembly. When they are 
gathered together in his name , he makes one of the assembly. 
If they are gathered together in some other name, his pres¬ 
ence may not be looked for. 

Now, what is there conceivable that can give a congregation 
the character of a Church more certainly and surely than the 
recognition and presence of Christ? A fig for all human 
considerations and arguments respecting the “ validity” of a 
Church where Christ is not present. And if Christ be pre¬ 
sent, a fig for all human considerations and arguments going 
or trying to prove that such association of persons professing 
to be Christians are not a “true” or “legal” Church. Who 
cares for what men choose to call valid, or true , or legal , in 
defining the character of Christian assemblies, so long as the 
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ approves and honors such 
assemblies by his Divine presence ? Can any thing be more 
true , or legal , or valid , than God ? Men may say that my 
Church is untrue and invalid, and welcome, if Christ does 
but recognize it and vouchsafe his presence there. And, on 
the contrary, 

“ If God his residence remove, 

Or but conceal his face,” 

what actions, or words, or rites, on the part of men, can give 
validity to a Church ? 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 127 

Where two, or three, or ten, or forty, or a thousand, are 
gathered together in my name —that is the test. Or, in 
other words, are they Christians following Christ in his gospel 
and ordinances ? 

A Church is an association of Christians following Christ. 

Such an association has the power to excommunicate, 
because it is a Church ; or, in the instance of persons alluding 
to their own Church, it is u the Church.” 

But here are some considerations which must be carefully 
noticed. A great error, with regard to stringent or absolute 
Congregationalism, is committed right here. 

It does not follow from what has been said, that every con¬ 
gregation, or association of persons professing to be Chris¬ 
tians, has the absolute power, or right rather, of excommu¬ 
nication. It has the power to excommunicate, or to per¬ 
form any other Church action, only in so far as Christ is 
present and sanctions what is done. Hence the necessity that 
Churches be extremely careful, and see that what they do has 
the approval of Heaven. 

Whatsoever they bind or loose, with the presence and 
approval of Christ, shall be bound or loosed in heaven. That 
is to say, whatever Christ approves or sanctions on earth he 
will recognize in heaven. 

There is, however, no infallibility in the Church. Chris¬ 
tians are fallible men. Fallibility is liability to err. 

For what reason are men endowed with judgment and dis¬ 
cretion, and reasoning and concluding powers? To enable 
them to guard, as well as may be, against the errors incident 
to fallibility. 

There is, therefore, to say the very least, as much neces¬ 
sity for the exercise of judgment and sound discretion in the 
Church as out of it. Christ is present and approves of some 
Church actions; not, however, because it is the action of a 
“ true” Church, but because the action was right. 


128 THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 

It will not do, therefore, to say that because a certain com¬ 
pany of Christians are a Church, that therefore they have the 
right of excommunication, or of performing any other action 
of government; and hence all they have to do in any given 
case is to take up the question and decide it; for they may 
decide it wrong. Because Christ approves some of their 
actions, it does not necessarily follow that he approves all. 
All human actions are liable to be wrong, because men are 
fallible. 

If it is said in the Bible that Christ will be with two or 
three disciples met in his name, there are some other things 
also in the Bible. 

The question which arose at Antioch respecting the ne¬ 
cessity of circumcision, was a question of excommunica¬ 
tion; or, at least, it was equivalent thereto. It was the 
question whether uncircumcised persons could be members of 
the Church. Now, they did not say—as the modern stringent 
Congregational doctrine is—We are a valid Church : we are a 
company of Christians, following Christ; and as such we are 
fully competent to decide all Church questions for ourselves: 
let us decide this question, and exclude, or include, these 
uncircumcised persons. They remembered that there was 
such a thing as prudence, carefulness, sober discretion, in the 
world, as well as Christianity; and that Christianity did not 
make men, either collectively or individually, infallible. And 
hence, u they determined that Paul and Barnabas, and certain 
other of them, should go up to Jerusalem, unto the apostles 
and elders, about this question.” 

Nothing can be right, performed by any Church, or by 
any kind of a Church, that ever existed upon earth, that is 
hasty, imprudent, careless, or indiscreet. 

Hence it is not right, and therefore it is not legal, for a 
Church—two or three—a company of Christians, because 
they are a valid Church, to take up, in and of themselves, 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 129 

any and every question, and decide it finally; a question 
involving the deepest interests of a person, or several persons, 
perhaps, when they have the opportunity of associating them¬ 
selves, either generally or specially, for the occasion, with 
other Churches, or with more wise, discreet, and experienced 
Christians. 

So that Congregationalism, if Congregationalism could be 
defined, precisely what it is and what it is not, does not by 
any means follow of necessity from the doctrine, that two or 
three, or more, Christians in association, with Christ’s pre¬ 
sence, are truly and validly a Church. If the doctrine be 
true, that a congregation is a Church, with all the legal 
powers necessarily pertaining to a Church of Christ, it does 
by no means follow that ecclesiastical jurisprudence must be 
conducted strictly and exclusively upon the Congregational 
plan; because federation may be both legal and dis¬ 
creet. 

Its legality depends upon the question whether it is for¬ 
bidden in the Scriptures; and the soundness of the policy 
may be ascertained, partly by experience and partly by the 
reason of the thing, respecting the soundness and stability of 
jurisprudence on the one hand, and social good order and 
prosperity on the other. 

We are bound, by Scripture precept, to hear the Church; 
but it does not therefore follow that we must heed and be 
instructed exclusively by a single congregation. If the Church 
can do no better—if federation be impracticable, in any given 
circumstances—if conference with a Church at Jerusalem, 
through Paul and Barnabas, be impracticable—then we must 
do the best we can, and act with less reliable counsel; but 
the best course that can be pursued is best. Christ is with 
the Church to give it validity, and to enstamp upon it its true 
and proper character, but not to give it infallibility. 

6 * 


130 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


The terms “legal” and “illegal,” “'valid” and “invalid,” 
are not applicable to the Church, or to a Church in the sense 
and in the way in which they are applicable to other human 
associations. The legality or validity of a Church depends, not 
upon some things which have been done or said, the manner 
in which some particular officer in the Church came to be an 
officer, or the like; but upon the presence or absence of 
Christ. And the presence or absence of Christ depends upon 
another question—whether the gathering together be or be 
not in the name of Christ; or, in other words, whether the 
persons be or be not Christians following Christ. 

The Church is not to be put on a par with associations of 
human invention. The Church is not humanly arranged or 
humanly conceived. It has no human constitution and laws 
to be complied with; consequently, it has no human tests by 
which its validity may be tried. It is not a thing set up, 
with positive laws or otherwise, in opposition to other institu¬ 
tions in the world; or to be regarded in contradistinction with 
something else that is not a Church. The law of God respect¬ 
ing mankind is, that they shall live and believe so and so. 
This Divine law has not respect to a few persons—to Chris¬ 
tians—to some persons as a part of the world : it is the law 
of God respecting mankind. 

There ought to be in the world, among men, nothing but 
the Church. The whole world ought to be the Church; and if 
this be not the case to-day, it is not because of any thing in 
the law of God respecting the Church, but because men vio¬ 
late the laws of God respecting the Church. The laws of 
God respecting the Church are the laws of God, more pro¬ 
perly speaking, respecting the world. The whole world is—• 
is supposed to be, or ought to be—the Church. 

The only thing which constitutes men a Church is, not any 
particular actions or conduct performed in pursuance of any 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 131 

positive laws, but merely good conduct, morally and religiously 
considered. Men wlio do not violate God’s laws, are a Church. 
The Church is not a mere voluntary association which men 
mayor may not enter into. Men “must be saved;” or if 
they will not be, it is because of the prostitution of their 
moral powers, and their flagrant violations of God’s law. 

The Church, therefore, as contradistinguished from the 
world, is not, by any means, a mere positive thing which God 
has arranged and prescribed. It results as much from what 
God has prohibited as from what he has commanded. The 
Church, as a separate institution from the world, and contra¬ 
distinguished therefrom, is not a thing which ought to be, but 
a thing which ought not to be. There ought to be no such 
separate institution. This distinction between Church and 
world is disallowed—is prohibited—in God’s law, and is kept 
up only by transgression of God’s will. A compliance with 
the commands of God would to-day, and for ever, annul all such 
distinction ; and henceforth there would be no Church as con¬ 
trasted with and distinguished from something else among 
men that is not the Church. There ought to be no such dis¬ 
tinction. 

To “hear the Church,” then, is simply to do right—to hear 
the Bible—to cease to do evil, and learn to do well. The 
idea that the Church is a mere “positive institution,” that is, 
an institution with positive laws, like a bank, a railroad com¬ 
pany, or college, takes away from it the notion that it is the 
visible embodiment of a universal religion. 

When Jesus Christ gave commands to his disciples, he 
recognized the fact that, as believers, they were contradis¬ 
tinguished from the other part of the world; but he did not 
sanction or justify any such division of people. The thing is 
still a fact, but it is not right: it ought not to be, because all 
men should obey and follow Christ. So long as the wicked- 


132 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


ness of men keeps this fact in existence—which time may 
Heaven speedily bring to an end!—the Church must be 
spoken of as a separate thing from the world. Let men leave 
off sinning, and then the pale of the Church is the boundary 
of mankind. This will probably be at the period of the 
ushering in of the world’s adult condition. 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


133 


CHAPTER III. 

OF CHURCH OFFICERS OR RULERS. 

We have seen that the form of government of the first 
Christian Churches was accidental ) that it was not planned, 
prescribed, or arranged either by Christ or his apostles; but 
that the first Christians continued the same form of Church 
government they had all along been accustomed to before 
they became Christians. The only difference of any note, 
and in fact almost the only difference, between the govern¬ 
ments of the synagogues and the Churches, in the days of the 
apostles, was that the latter had not the office of “ruler;” 
and this must needs be the case, for that was a civil office. 

The first Churches were, in a modified and restricted sense, 
congregational. They could not, in the nature of the case, 
be any thing else. They were just as congregational as the 
synagogues were, for they were synagogues. To take and look 
at a single instance—it is the very same synagogue now that 
it was a year ago; and the only new thing that has occurred 
in it is, that now the preacher preaches a different doctrine 
from what he or his predecessor did formerly. 

But when it is said that the first Churches were congrega¬ 
tional, it is not intended to be meant that each Church re¬ 
spectively managed all its affairs without supervision, advice, 
or control from, sister Churches. The lines of jurisdiction 
were by no means tightly drawn, nor were the landmarks of 


134 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


division carefully planted and strictly observed. Judicial 
authority was by no means strictly meted out, claimed, 
yielded, and exercised. 

When the Churches found themselves actually, though in¬ 
formally, separated from the prevailing synagogue government 
to which they had been all along accustomed, the individual 
Churches found it necessary to bring themselves closer toge¬ 
ther than formerly; but it was long before this was done in a 
strictly legal and formal manner. 

The apostles lived, some of them, and exercised a very 
general jurisdiction over the Churches, for about half a cen¬ 
tury; but even this supervision was not strictly judicial. 
The Churches relied upon their counsel and advice when it 
could be obtained; but this control was informal and moral, 
rather than strictly legal. 

The early Churches were congregational in the sense that 
they were not strictly confederate. 

The “ council,” as it is oftentimes called, which was held 
at Jerusalem with regard to the question of circumcision, 
was not a council in any strictly legal sense of that term. It 
was rather the meeting of a Church. Nor was it exclusively 
a meeting of a Church; for “ Paul and Barnabas, and certain 
other of them” from Antioch, mingled with “the apostles 
and elders,” and with “ all the brethren,” and “ the whole 
multitude,” and “ the whole Church,” at Jerusalem, in their 
deliberations. 

Federation and non-federation is the natural and proper 
distinction between Churches which are and which are not 
congregational. But federation did not—could not, in the 
circumstances of the case—come about at once as an act of 
specific legislation. 

The government was the most easy, simple, and plain im¬ 
aginable. In fact, they had but little government. They 
needed but little. The absorbing question with them was 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


135 


religion , the great and important truths which Christ had 
taught. They thought or cared exceedingly little about 
government. When a question of doctrine or of alleged 
immorality pressed upon their notice, the Church and minis¬ 
ters would get together and settle it. The apostles would of 
course give their advice and counsel when at hand. The 
“ angel/’ as he was first called, or bishop, as he afterward came 
to be called among the disciples, was of course the most 
prominent man among them, in the absence of an apostle. 
The responsibilities of government, or of control, in their 
affairs, would naturally fall chiefly upon him without any 
seeking on his part. He was assisted in what he did by the 
Church, or by such portions of it as were necessary. 

Thus affairs moved on in a way the most simple and smooth 
imaginable, so far as concerned the government of their 
Churches. The great matters of interest with them were, 
first, religion; and secondly, the dangers, and persecutions, 
and abuses to which they were exposed from their unbelieving 
brethren and the Romans. Church government could reach 
neither of these but partially. 

The Saviour had taught them nothing as to any particular 
form of Church government. That was an open question, 
left to be regulated from time to time as expediency and sound 
discretion would dictate. 

A little reflection will teach any one that this is the case, 
and must needs have been the condition of things. The attri¬ 
butes of government—either the government of a Church, a 
state, a school, or family—are, Legislative, Judiciary, and 
Executive. Or, first, the making of laws; second, the deter¬ 
mination of questions arising under these laws; and, third, the 
execution or enforcement of any judgment or decree which 
may be so made. 

Now, the organization of the government of a Church, as 
of any thing else, means the placing of these attributes of 


136 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


government in the hands of such and such officers, with such 
and such powers and duties, in contradistinction to the placing 
of them in the hands of different officers, by a different ar¬ 
rangement, and with duties prescribed otherwise. 

And now, it is held that the early Christians could not 
fix this distribution of the attributes of government among 
specified and fixed officers for the Christian Church, in all 
time to come. For, as has been already intimated, a Church 
government arranged in the best way to meet the circumstan¬ 
ces and condition of the Christians at that time in Palestine, 
could not, in the very nature of the case, be best suited to the 
circumstances and condition of Christians in all possible 
cases to the end of time. This point will be enlarged upon 
and explained more fully in a more appropriate place. It is 
enough for us to know, however, that the New Testament 
contains no prescription, or rule, or intimation even, with 
regard to any particular form of Church government; 
though it recognizes or supposes the existence of such 
government, and presumes the participation of ministers in 
its exercise. In fact, the very idea of a ministry, as above 
intimated, or pastorate, supposes oversight; and that, in a sub¬ 
ordinate sense, is government. 

The Churches in the days of the apostles, and for two hun¬ 
dred years afterwards, were governed, exclusively of the govern¬ 
ment of the apostles, by bishops and presbyters in conjunction 
with the people, in the following manner : 

As Churches sprang up in different places, a bishop was 
appointed or elected to watch over them, to teach, instruct, 
and minister to them in holy things. Frequently these bish¬ 
ops were appointed by an apostle, if he chanced to be mainly 
instrumental in the origination of the Church; but this was 
never, or, at least, not usually done without the consent of the 
brethren composing the Church. 

These ministers were called, indifferently, bishops, presby- 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


137 


ters, or elders. In Titus i. 5, 7, tlie same persons are called, 
at one time elders, and at another, bishops. Other passages 
prove the same point beyond question. 

Christianity was new in those days; and the people who 
embraced its faith, whether Jews or Gentiles, were exceed¬ 
ingly ignorant of its tenets, and of their duty as Christians. 
They had no Bibles nor other books which taught Christian 
principles and precepts, as was the case in after years. 
Converts in many places were numerous, and the disciples 
were persecuted from place to place, and the Churches 
subject to constant change and confusion in external mat¬ 
ters. 

It is easy to conceive, therefore, that in most places, if not 
in all, more than one minister would be necessary to a Church ) 
and that the disruption to which the Churches were subject, 
would cause sometimes the union of two or more into one, 
and sometimes the dividing of one into several, as the disci¬ 
ples would increase, so that there could not be regularly one 
minister to a Church even if it were desirable. In fact, this 
has never been the case up to the present day. 

There were then, oftentimes, if not generally or uni¬ 
formly, more than one of these presbyters or bishops to a 
Church. Generally, no doubt, several were both useful and 
desirable. Of course, good order would require that one of 
these bishops should be the chief pastor of the congregation, 
or president of the body of presbyters or bishops. Of course, 
then, he thus becomes superior to them in this respect. He 
is the leading, responsible, and most prominent minister. 
The others support and assist him. He is not, however, supe¬ 
rior to the other bishops as an ecclesiastic. He is only supe¬ 
rior as an officer. This is so far from being a strange 
arrangement, difficult to be understood and appreciated, that 
it continues to be the case in most if not in all the Churches 
to the present day. Wherever we find more than one minis- 


138 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


ter in a Church, one is the pastor, and of course the others, 
one or more, are inferior to him in respect to the duty and 
office of pastor. 

Lord Chancellor King remarks, (Primitive Church, p. 82,) 
that, “a bishop having but one parish under his jurisdiction, 
could extend his government no farther than one single congre¬ 
gation, because a single congregation and a parish were all 
one.” 

Again, page 43 : “ How long it was before these dioceses 
swelled into several congregations is not my business to de¬ 
termine, since it happened not within my prescribed time”— 
three hundred years. Lord King confined his examinations 
to the period of three hundred years after Christ. 

It might here be remarked, parenthetically, that Lord King, 
High Chancellor of England, was one of the ripest scholars 
and best oriental linguists that England ever produced. He 
wrote his “ Primitive Church” at an early age, and published 
it about one hundred and fifty years ago. It required an 
amount of labor and research, no less than a careful examina¬ 
tion of every thing of an ecclesiastical character which was 
written in the early ages. It is almost exclusively a book of 
collated and deducted facts, and is, beyond comparison, the 
ablest work of the kind extant. 

“Now,” he remarks, “the definition of a presbyter may be 
this: A person in holy orders, having thereby an inherent 
right to perform the whole office of a bishop; but being pos¬ 
sessed of no place or parish, not actually discharging it with¬ 
out the permission and consent of the bishop of a place or 
parish.”—Primitive Church, p. 61. 

Lord King then proceeds to show, from the writers of that 
day, that presbyters who were not bishops, that is, who had 
not the pastoral oversight, had the right to discharge all the 
duties of a bishop, with this restriction, however, that he 
could not perform these duties without the consent or dircc- 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


139 


tion of the presiding elder or bishop. A number of authori¬ 
ties of that day are quoted. 

These bishops were elected by the Churches, and were in¬ 
stalled into office, or ordained, by the other ministers of the 
Church, who, collectively, were usually called the presbytery. 
Eusebius says, in speaking of Fabianus, the successor of 
Anteros, bishop of Rome, “All the people met together in 
the Church to choose a successor.” He also says Alexander 
was chosen bishop of the Church at Jerusalem by the 
“choice of the members of that Church.”—Primitive 
Church, p. 55. 

There is one thing, however, which ought to be borne in 
mind, and which seems strangely to have escaped the notice 
of most persons. The information which has come down to 
us respecting the management of the early Churches, refers 
almost, if not quite, entirely to those in the principal cities, 
and only a very few of them. Christianity, even in the first 
century, became spread over a considerable part of the world. 
It was found in many countries of Asia, Africa, and even in 
Europe. In that age, the transmission of intelligence from 
place to place was slow, uncertain, and expensive. Hence 
there could be but little concert among Churches distant from 
each other, respecting the details of mere external matters, 
such as forms of government, modes, and manners. The 
leading, absorbing matter of faith in Christ was the only 
thing necessary to be kept pure and uniform ; and we know 
that even this was by no means always done. We must con¬ 
clude, therefore—remembering, too, the unsettled and dis¬ 
tracted condition of the Church, arising from persecution and 
civil opposition—these external customs must have varied con¬ 
siderably in different places, and among different people, of 
different countries, with different laws, manners, and customs. 
There could have been no entire uniformity in Church gov¬ 
ernment over the world. This was never entirely the case 


140 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


even under the iron despotism of popish rule in darker and 
more gloomy ages. It never was the case at any time in the 
Church’s history. 

Mosheim says: “ The rulers of the Church were called 
either presbyters, or bishops, which two titles are in the New 
Testament undoubtedly applied to the same order of men. 
These were persons of eminent gravity, and such as had dis¬ 
tinguished themselves by their superior sanctity and merit. 
Their particular functions were not always the same; for, 
while some of them confined their labors to the instruction 
of the people, others contributed in different ways to the edi¬ 
fication of the Church.”— Ecc. Hist., vol. i., p. 88. 

The same distinguished author, after noticing the appoint¬ 
ment of deacons, etc., continues to remark: 

a Such was the constitution of the Christian Church in its 
infancy, when its assemblies were neither numerous nor 
splendid. Three or four presbyters, men of remarkable piety 
and wisdom, ruled these small congregations in perfect har¬ 
mony; nor did they stand in need of any president or supe¬ 
rior to maintain concord and order where no dissensions were 
known. But the number of the presbyters and deacons in¬ 
creasing with that of the Churches, and the sacred work of 
the ministry growing more weighty and painful, by a number 
of additional duties, these new circumstances required new 
regulations. It was then judged necessary that one man of 
distinguished gravity and wisdom should preside in the coun¬ 
cil of the presbyters, in order to distribute among his col¬ 
leagues their several tasks, and to be a centre of union to the 
whole society. This person was at first styled the angel of 
the Church to which he belonged, but was afterwards distin¬ 
guished by the name of bishop, or inspector; a name bor¬ 
rowed from the Greek language, and expressing the principal 
part of the episcopal function, which was to inspect into and 
superintend the affairs of the Church. It is highly probable 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 141 

that the Church of Jerusalem, grown considerably numerous, 
and deprived of the ministry of the apostles, who were gone 
to instruct other nations, was the first which chose a president 
or bishop. And it is no less probable that the other Churches 
followed by degrees such a respectable example. 

“ Let none, however, confound the bishops of this primi¬ 
tive and golden period of the Church with those of whom 
we read in the following ages. For though they were both 
distinguished by the same name, yet they differed extremely, 
and that in many respects. A bishop during the first and 
second century was a person who had the care of one Chris¬ 
tian assembly, which at that time was, generally speaking, 
small enough to be contained in a private house. In this as¬ 
sembly he acted not so much with the authority of a master 
as with the zeal and diligence of a faithful servant. He in¬ 
structed the people, performed the several parts of Divine 
worship, attended the sick, and inspected into the circum¬ 
stances and supplies of the poor. He charged, indeed, the 
presbyters with the performance of those duties and services 
which the multiplicity of his engagements rendered impossible 
for him to fulfil; but had not the power to decide or enact 
any thing without the consent of the presbyters and people. 
And, though the episcopal office was both laborious and sin¬ 
gularly dangerous, yet its revenues were extremely small, since 
the Church had no certain income, but depended on the gifts 
or oblations of the multitude, which were, no doubt, incon¬ 
siderable, and were, moreover, to be divided between the 
bishops, presbyters, deacons, and poor. 

“ The power and jurisdiction of the bishops were not long 
confined to these narrow limits, but soon extended themselves, 
and that by the following means : The bishops who lived in 
the cities, had, either by their own ministry or that of their 
presbyters, erected new churches in the neighboring towns 
and villages. These churches, continuing under the inspec- 


142 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


tion and ministry of the bishops by whose labors and counsels 
they had been engaged to embrace the gospel, grew imper¬ 
ceptibly into ecclesiastical provinces, which the Greeks after¬ 
wards called dioceses. But as the bishop of the city could 
not extend his labors and inspection to all these churches in the 
country and in the villages, so he appointed certain suffragans 
or deputies to govern and instruct these new societies; and 
they were distinguished by the name of cJiorepiscojpi, i. e., 
country bishops. This order held the middle rank between 
bishops and presbyters, being inferior to the former and supe¬ 
rior to the latter. 

“ The churches, in these ancient times, were entirely inde¬ 
pendent; none of them subject to any foreign jurisdiction, 
but each one governed by its own rulers and its own laws. 
For though the churches founded by the apostles had this 
particular deference shown them, that they were consulted in 
difficult and doubtful cases, yet they had no judicial author¬ 
ity, no sort of supremacy over others, nor the least right to 
enact laws for them. Nothing, on the contrary, is more evi¬ 
dent than the perfect equality that reigned among the primi¬ 
tive Churches; nor does there even appear, in this first cen¬ 
tury, the smallest trace of that association of provincial 
churches from which councils and metropolitans derive their 
origin. It was only in the second century that the custom 
of holding councils commenced in Greece, from whence it 
soon spread through the other provinces.”— Ecc. Hist., vol. i., 
pp. 91, 92. 

The only question in issue respecting Church officers and 
rulers, is respecting the distribution of the several attributes 
of government among certain functionaries, in this, that, or 
the other manner. There is no dispute respecting the duties 
of pastor, as such. The only question is, whether the 
Divine law prescribes that such and such attributes of 
government shall be exercised by a pastor, or by any other 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


143 


particular church officer or officers. And this is the same as 
to inquire if any, and, if any, what form of Church govern¬ 
ment is prescribed in the Scriptures. 

The New Testament is not very large. Any man may in¬ 
quire into it and see for himself. The simple truth is, that 
there is not in this book one word respecting any particular 
form of Church government. There is not a word which 
lodges the attributes of government, or any one of them, in 
any particular hands. ' 

The idea, however, of pastoral care and oversight is insepa¬ 
rable from the idea of government in an unadjusted form, and 
in a subordinate sense. It does not, however, imply the ex¬ 
ercise of authority in the following particulars, which certainly 
make up most of what we call Church government: 

1. The authority of a pastor does not necessarily give him 
the right to determine whether a particular person shall or 
shall not be admitted into the Church. 

2. It does not necessarily allow him to exclude a person 
from the Church. 

3. Nor does it necessarily invest him with authority to 
organize a court of judicature to try offences. 

4. Nor to determine when, where, or how churches shall 
be built. 

5. Nor to participate in the legal ownership of Church pro¬ 
perty. 

6. Nor to determine when, where, how, or how frequently 
the Lord’s Supper shall be administered. 

7. Nor to determine whether a new Church shall be orga¬ 
nized, or whether an existing Church shall be dissolved, and 
its members merged in other Churches. 

8. Nor to raise money, nor to disburse it, nor to determine 
the amount of his own salary, or that of other ministers. 

The powers which necessarily inhere in the pastorate are 
those which, in their nature, belong to the giving of public 


144 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


and private instruction; exhortation, and admonition in morals 
and religion. Convenience, but nothing else, oftentimes, how¬ 
ever, places other powers in his hands. These natural attri¬ 
butes of the pastorate are, in the Scriptures, plainly lodged 
in the hands of the minister. All other powers pertaining 
to government are lodged in the sound discretion of pious 
men, to be regulated in different ages, and different countries, 
and different circumstances, in the way that will best answer 
the ends of government. 

This is not only the written doctrine in the Scriptures, but 
it is the practical doctrine everywhere out of them. No two 
Churches in different countries, times, and circumstances, 
are ever governed precisely alike. 

It ought to be remarked, too, that far less authority is need¬ 
ful in the government of a Church than in that of almost any 
thing else : far less than in governing a family or school; and 
as to the government of a state, there is almost no compari¬ 
son. The Scriptures leave very little to do in the way of 
ecclesiastical authority ; but ambitious men have made a great 
and unnecessary ado about it in the world. The rule of 
Churches, though it may not be entirely dispensed with, ought 
to be but very slightly felt and but very slightly exercised. 

Organization supposes government. The ideas are insepa¬ 
rable. But different parties in religion place the functions of 
control here or there, to suit their own preconceived notions, 
and of course their arguments must be made accordingly. 

The advocates of an essential, practical democratic govern¬ 
ment for the Church quote Matt, xxiii. 8-10: “ Be ye not 
called Babbi; for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye 
are brethren. And call no man your father upon the earth; 
for one is your Father, which is in heaven. Neither be ye 
called masters; for one is your Master, even Christ.” Also 
in Matt. xx. 25-27, it is said : (i But Jesus called them unto 
him and said, Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


145 


exercise dominion over tliem, and they that are great exercise 
authority upon them. But it shall not be so among you; but 
whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister. 
And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your 
servant.” 

These passages, it is contended, “ recognize the essential 
equality of Christians under the rule of Christ, their subjec¬ 
tion to him alone as their Lord and Master, and to God alone 
as their Father, and entirely exclude any spiritual lordship of 
the apostles or any one of them over the Church.”—Sawyer’s 
Organic Christianity, page 22. 

If the terms “ spiritual lordship” in the above passage are 
intended to mean supervision or control in spiritual matters, 
which they must mean if they mean any thing, then we have 
a flat denial that there is rightly and properly, or can be in 
the Church upon earth, any human government, that is, any 
government exercised by humau persons. There can be no 
human Church officers, or discipline, or supervision ) but every 
man is responsible directly and only to Christ. And then, 
there being no government in the exercise of which human 
persons participate or officiate, there can be no organization 
of human persons, and, consequently, no Church composed of 
human persons. 

On the contrary, the advocates of a “ strong government,” 
as it perhaps might be called, who contend that the functions 
of control inhere by Divine law in the ministers of the Church 
exclusively, find nothing in the New Testament on the sub¬ 
ject, but such passages as the following: “Feed the flock of 
God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof.” 
1 Pet. v. 2. “Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all 
the flock over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you over¬ 
seers, to feed the Church of God, which he hath purchased 
with his own blood.” Acts xx. 28. “ The apostles and elders 

came together for to consider this matter.” Acts xv. 6. 

7 


146 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


Between these two extremes there is a middle ground, that 
harmonizes not only with one or two passages, selected appa¬ 
rently with the view to sustain a party, but with all that is 
found in the Scriptures. By what logical argument can it be 
contended that the above passages, from 1 Peter and from 
Acts, place the functions of control so exclusively in the 
hands of ministers, as to forbid the participation of lay autho¬ 
rity entirely ? In view and in full recognition of them, may 
not a Church govern itself in all matters which do not natu¬ 
rally pertain to pastoral care? May not a minister “feed” a 
“flock,” and be a spiritual overseer over it, which manages, 
at the same time, numberless matters pertaining to external 
discipline and incidental arrangement, by means of lay or cleri¬ 
cal officers, legislative, judicial, or executive? Because the 
nature of the ministerial office is inseparable from some con¬ 
trol in relation to some things, does it necessarily follow that 
all ecclesiastical authority resides in the minister ? 

These two extremes must be avoided. The Scriptures lie 
between them. 

There is one, and perhaps but one, matter pertaining to 
ecclesiastical discipline which seems naturally to place itself 
in the hands of ministers exclusively. I mean the trial of 
ministers themselves. Mr. Watson very properly remarks on 
this subject: 

“ It can scarcely happen that a minister should be under 
accusation, except in some very particular cases, but that 
from his former influence, at least with a part of the people, 
some faction would be found to support him. In proportion 
to the ardor of this feeling, the other party would be excited 
to undue severity and bitterness.”—Institutes, page 616. 

The trial of a minister by his people, with whom he lives 
and to whom he constantly ministers, could scarcely be 
expected to be a fair trial. There is not a more wholesome 
principle in human jurisprudence than this : that the triers of 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


147 


any man, for any offence, should be selected, as far as practi¬ 
cable, from beyond the sphere of his influence: so that any 
prejudices he may have created, either for or against himself, 
may be entirely excluded from the adjudication. 

This principle is held inviolate in human jurisprudence, 
almost universally, in civilized society. The principle itself is 
based in man’s nature and circumstances. It is scarcely sup- 
posable that it could be violated by the Author of this nature 
himself. Moreover, the nature of the ministerial office seems 
to point to ministers themselves, as the most suitable persons 
to try such offences. 

It is not, I believe, pretended by any that there are any 
particular directions in the word of Glod on this point. It 
was, it seems, presumed, with many other matters, that this 
could be safely lodged in the sound discretion of holy men. 


148 


TIIE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


CHAPTER IY. 

NUMBER OF ORDERS IN THE MINISTRY. 

The nature of the constitution of the Church, and that of 
its ordinary laws, will he briefly explained in the next chap¬ 
ter. It may, however, perhaps, be well here to remark, that 
the constitution embraces those things which God himself 
has established as necessary, absolutely, to the Church's 
existence. 

The laws are rules made by men, for the internal govern¬ 
ment of the Church, and which it is not absolutely necessary 
should always be the same, but may be varied with varying 
circumstances, in or out of the Church. To vary from the 
constitution is to leave the track on which God placed the 
Church. 

There are four different theories with regard to ministerial 
orders in the Church, which will be noticed in order. 

First, It is held that there are constitutionally three orders 
in the ministry. 

This is argued from the supposed fact that there were three 
orders in the Jewish priesthood. If this were true, it by no 
means proves that there must be three orders in the Christian 
ministry. 

Religion, previous to the Saviour, was confessedly partial, 
incomplete, and cumbersome. It was a u schoolmaster to 
bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. 
But after that faith is come, we arc no longer under a school- 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


149 


master.” Gal. iii. 24, 25. The Jewish dispensation of grace 
occupied the same place in religion that the spelling-book 
does in science and literature. 

An argument that will prove that there must be three 
orders in the ministry, because there were a like number in 
the priesthood, will of course prove that there must be con¬ 
formity to that system in many other respects. As, for 
instance, there must be the same ritual observances, the same 
temple service, and, in a word, that the system of Judaism 
must continue, and Christianity be dispensed with; or, at 
most, that the latter is but a partial scheme superadded to the 
former. There can, in the nature of the case, be but two 
reasons given why any thing in the Jewish economy of 
religion should be continued in the present. First, that it is 
a thing naturally essential in all true religion; or, second, 
that it has for its support the express and unmistakable com¬ 
mand of God. 

Moreover, it is by no means conceded that there were three 
orders in the Jewish priesthood. Properly considered, there 
was but one order. The Levites could scarcely be called an 
order of priesthood. They were more properly the servants 
of the priests. 

“ Their principal office was to wait upon the priests, and be 
assisting to them in the service of the tabernacle and temple, 
so that they were properly the ministers and servants of the 
priests, and obliged to obey their orders.”—Horne’s Introduc¬ 
tion, vol. ii., page 111. 

The high-priest could not be said to be an order of priest¬ 
hood, for there could be but one at a time. An order of 
persons cannot be confined to one single person. It cannot 
be said that one minister is an order of ministers. The term 
order is, at best, of very ambiguous and indefinite meaning; 
but this use of it would require it to serve almost any pur¬ 
pose. 


150 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


The office of high-priest is peculiar to a theocracy. He 
is both a civil and a religious king. 

Three orders in the ministry is further attempted to be 
proved from the alleged fact that there were three orders of 
ministers in the days of the apostles. The apostles, it is 
said, constituted one order, the presbyters, bishops, or elders, 
were the second, and the deacons were the third. 

This, however, proves too much. For the same scriptures 
that prove three orders will, in the same sense, prove that 
there were four , or five, or six orders. 

If the number of orders in the ministry is determined by 
the number of kinds, or classes, of ministerial labor performed 
by different ministers, then let us see— 

“And he gave some apostles, and some prophets, and some 
evangelists, and some pastors and teachers.” Eph. iv. 11. 
Here is express mention of five different kinds of ministerial 
labor, in which is not mentioned either the deacon or the dea¬ 
coness. So that if ministerial order is to be reckoned in this 
way, we have at least six or seven orders. 

Second. It is set forth in the second place, that entire 
parity in the ministry is the constitutional law of the Chris¬ 
tian Church. 

To this it is objected, that it lacks both of the only two 
modes of determining a constitutional provision by which it 
may be distinguished from a prudential regulation. First, it 
is not naturally necessary, in and of itself, in order to the 
worship of Grodj and, secondly, it is not expressly com¬ 
manded. Nothing in the Church can be constitutional that 
does not bear one of these two marks. 

Again, the doctrine is impracticable. No Church can avoid 
—at least, no Church has ever avoided—its practical infringe¬ 
ment every day. No Church can continue to exist without 
the exercise of legislative, judicial, and executive functions. 
And nothing is more apparent than the necessity of conferring 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 151 

special authority on certain ministers: that of presidency, for 
instance, or power to execute laws, in order to the exercise of 
these functions. And the moment authority is conferred 
upon one man, which all do not possess—whether for a day, a 
single act, a week, or a year, or a lifetime, the principle is 
the same—the parity is destroyed. 

It is not inquired in what way the principle of ministerial 
parity may or may not properly he disturbed: whether by 
the Church itself, or its ministers among themselves, or for 
what purpose, or on what occasions. Those who contend for 
constitutional parity must be held to their position. 

Whether expediency may or may not dictate the observance 
of a general parity among ministers, to be disturbed only once 
a year, or more or less frequently, and to last only for short 
periods, is quite another question. This question, however, per¬ 
tains to the human laws of the Church, and not to its Divine 
constitution. 

Third. A third hypothesis is, that there are, coustitution- 
ally, two orders in the ministry : the presbyterate and the dea- 
conry. That the episcopate is only an office in the presby¬ 
terate, and may or may not be used, as the Church may de¬ 
termine by its own laws. 

If that is the doctrine, it does not appear to me entirely 
free from objection. I am aware that men oftentimes seem 
to differ from the mere use of terms in different senses, or 
by understanding them with complexional variations. Let 
us see. 

If God has enacted, in the constitution of the Church, that 
there must be two orders in the ministry, then there cannot 
be a Church without two orders in the ministry. There must 
be two , and only two. 

This is pretty high ground, and must be either maintained 
or abandoned. Its maintenance requires the ostracism of all 
Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Baptists, and, in fact, a very 


152 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


large proportion of all the so-called Churches and Christians 
that have ever existed. 

Can this be done on any ground, seeing they have, beyond 
all question, oftentimes given the best proofs of the presence 
and favor of God in the conversion of sinners among them ? 
The reader is referred to the remarks in the chapter on u Hear 
the Church,” and to the Part of the present work on u Eccle¬ 
siastical Exclusiveness,” for a further elucidation of this par¬ 
ticular point. 

Again: it is certain the Church existed for a time without 
deacons: how long, we do not know precisely. But when 
they were appointed, it is clearly stated that it was done as an 
incidental measure, because of certain exigences then present, 
and not as a matter essentially pertaining to the Church’s 
existence. 

See Acts vi. 1: “In those days, when the number of the 
disciples was multiplied, there arose a murmuring of the 
Grecians against the Hebrews, because their widows were neg¬ 
lected in the daily ministration. Then the twelve called the 
multitude,” etc. And the deacons were selected and or¬ 
dained. 

The reasons for the appointment are specifically set forth. 
First: the largeness of the Church. Second : the murmur¬ 
ing of the Grecian, or Hellenistic, or foreign portion of the 
Church. This point will be more particularly enlarged on in 
its appropriate chapter. 

The question is not whether the deaconry is or is not an 
order in the ministry; but it is—just at this point—whether 
to dispense with it, as an order of ministry, necessarily 
involves the forfeiture of the Church’s charter which she 
received from God. It is whether a Church can be a Church 
without the deaconry as an order of ministry. 

And we also state the objection mentioned above as a bar to 
the correctness of the first and second hypotheses, viz.: That 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


153 


two orders in tlie ministry are neither naturally necessary to 
the worship of God and the existence of a Church, nor are 
they set forth in the New Testament as an essential ingredient 
in the Church’s composition. 

When we lay down any thing as essentially necessary to the 
Church’s existence, we must prepare ourselves to show that 
in its absence the Church cannot exist. There are few such 
things. 

Fourth. The only remaining doctrine which I propose to 
notice here, on this point, is, that God established the Church 
in two general departments, viz. : The ministry and the laity—■ 
these two divisions being essential, and their relation answer¬ 
ing generally to that of a shepherd and his flock. But that 
any orders, or offices, or division of duties in the ministry, 
may be varied by circumstances, times, and places, and are 
not essential. 

This relation to the shepherd and flock is only general, very 
general, in its nature, for there are but few points of real 
analogy in the case. 

There has been a Church with a ministry since the call of 
Abraham at least. In fact, more properly speaking, there 
has been a Church and a ministry since the call of Adam, 
under the covenant of grace, under the promise of a Saviour. 
This ministry has existed under a variety of forms, and with 
some variety as to its functions. 

Of the ministry in the antediluvian period, we know but 
little. So far as wo know, it appears to have been very 
general in its character. 

The Noahic covenant of grace may be regarded as God’s 
second dispensation to men. Here the ministry, as contra¬ 
distinguished from the laity, appears to have acquired a little 
more definiteness in its peculiar relation, though still we are 
informed but very little indeed on the subject. 

The Abrahamic covenaut may be regarded as the third dis- 

7* 


154 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


pensation. I use tlie word dispensation , not because it is spe¬ 
cifically appropriate, but for lack of a better, in the lameness 
of human language. In this dispensation the ministry is 
more specifically and prominently developed in the Scriptures ) 
and it may be regarded as the origin of the Church proper. 
The condition of the world still required that this dispensa¬ 
tion should be but partial and incomplete, as a system of re¬ 
covering grace for mankind. Its ministry, like those which 
preceded it, was still in the nature of a priesthood. Juda¬ 
ism answered its end in the economy of God’s providence. 
Its ministry , as contradistinguished from the laity, corre¬ 
sponded to the kind of worship required, and it was varied 
and arranged accordingly. 

When the world was ready, the full development of the Di¬ 
vine plan was ushered in, and the Church was varied and 
moulded to correspond to these new circumstances. We still 
gee in it that which has always characterized it—its ministry 
and its laity. These appear to be essential to the very notion 
a Church. 

In the Jewish economy, some considered that the service of 
ihe temple was essential to the existence of the Church : that 
there must be a high-priest, and his yearly services. But this 
was a mistake. When the Jews were carried captive to 
Babylon, they had neither temple nor high-priest; but they 
continued to worship God acceptably, under a synagogue sys¬ 
tem, which varied materially from the temple service. The 
temple service was an institution of that dispensation, but 
was not in the nature of an indispensable or constitutional 
provision. 

The Christian dispensation differs from the former ones in 
this, that it is full, complete, and perfect, as a system; and is 
so arranged as to adapt itself to all possible states and condi¬ 
tions of mankind. If we go, in our notions of constitutional 
adjustment, beyond the provision of a ministry , and suppose 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 155 

that there must be some particular orders, or offices, in the 
ministry, as essentially necessary to the Church's existence, 
are we not likely to come in contact with some other things 
which are essential to the Church’s catholicity ? 

Are we right sure that it is always possible for every Church 
to comply with this requisition of two orders, or even to have 
two ministers ? If we can find such a case, then one of two 
things is inevitable: either the two orders are not necessary 
to the Church’s existence, or the system is not adapted to 
mankind in all possible conditions. And that such cases are 
not only possible, but are really abundant, will be, it is be¬ 
lieved, very clearly set forth in a subsequent chapter, wherein 
it will be attempted to be shown that no form of Church gov¬ 
ernment can be exclusively the one legal form. 

What do we understand ourselves to mean, when we say 
that a Church is not a Church without the two orders of pres¬ 
byter and deacon ? We surely do not allude to a confederate 
Church. A confederate Church is only a confederation of a 
hundred or a thousand churches. The idea of validity or in¬ 
validity cannot attach to the confederation. Surely there is 
nothing constitutional or unconstitutional in this. It can only 
attach to the churches themselves. Confederation, like a 
hundred things in all churches, is, beyond all question, a 
prudential arrangement. To say that a confederate Church 
must have two orders in its ministry, presupposes that confed¬ 
eration is a constitutional provision, which cannot for a mo¬ 
ment be pretended. It might as well be said that a mission¬ 
ary society, or a Bible society, or a tract society, or itinerancy, 
or the division of ministerial labor into circuits and stations, 
or the holding of annual conferences or synods, belongs essen¬ 
tially to the constitution of the Church. When we speak of 
constitutional provisions, we must do so, and not fly off on 
prudential provisions. 


15G 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


If a Church must have two orders in its ministry, the 
elders and deacons, how can this be in the case of two or 
three met together in the name of the Saviour ? This is, be¬ 
yond all question, a constitutional Church. For what marks 
can be conceived of, as defining the validity of a Church, with 
more certainty than those which Christ has himself expressly 
named, viz., that the association be in his name , and that it 
have his actual presence ? Here is a legal Church, beyond all 
question, and you might not be able to find in it the two 
orders in the ministry. 

Moreover, what distinct idea do we form in the mind when 
we speak of different orders in the ministry ? Ho we mean 
that these gradations of rank are constitutional—necessarily 
inherent in the Christian Church ? Or do we mean that the 
varied functions of ministerial labor, in its various depart¬ 
ments, in prosecuting the business of a large Church, re¬ 
quires, in order to the most faithful and expeditious dis¬ 
charge, for the good of the Church, the oversight of some 
ministers, and labor corresponding to this oversight on the 
part of others? If so, then we cannot say it is constitu¬ 
tional; for, in the absence of these things, such oversight 
may be dispensed with. 

Ho the Scriptures inculcate the idea of constitutional supe¬ 
riority and inferiority in the Church at all? Are not all 
Christians, on the contrary, esteemed as brethren ? And does 
not the very idea of authority in the ministry—rule on the 
one hand and submission on the other—mingle essentially 
with the idea of office?—of the discharge of varied duties, 
here and there, among ministers where there are a considera¬ 
ble number in one Church, or under one common jurisdiction ? 
In what sense can one minister be of a higher order than an¬ 
other minister? We understand the notion of ranh in an 
army, or in various worldly positions. The higher the rank. 


TIIE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 157 

the higher the pay. This is one important note of distinction. 
And another is, that in some instances inherent authority 
attaches to the higher and the still higher positions. 

But these notions do not grow out of Christianity: on the 
contrary, they are rather repugnant to it, or grow out of a 
worldly spirit. 

We conclude, then, that that in the Christian Church which 
has the appearance of grades of order , or rank, in the minis¬ 
try, is a mere division of labor among several ministers, where 
the good of the whole requires that one should have the over¬ 
sight of others. And as to the relation the deacon bears to 
the ministry proper, or to presbyters, that will be explained 
more fully in its appropriate chapter. 

I see not the least objection, however, to the deaconry be¬ 
ing called an order in the ministry, with the explanations 
herein given. The term is nothing: the thing only can in¬ 
terest sensible persons. The question is not, whether the 
deaconry is, or is not, an order in the ministry. The only 
practical question is, What relation does the deaconry sustain 
to the ministry of the Church ? The name by which that 
relation is distinguished is nothing, so that we properly un¬ 
derstand each other when we pronounce or use the name. 

A dispute about words is an etymological or lexicographical 
argument. 

The deacon, though not fully, is partially a minister of the 
gospel. That is, he is authorized to discharge some of the 
duties of a minister, but not all of them. He is the assistant 
of the minister ) or, as the name imports, the attendant or 
helper of the minister. He has entered the vestibule leading 
to the ministry, and expects shortly to enter the ministry 
itself, by ordination thereto. 

We conclude, then, that a Church, by its laws, either a 
single or confederate Church, may have as many orders in the 


158 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


ministry as expediency may seem to require; that is, that 
the whole of its ministerial labors may be divided into as 
many classes as expediency may require, and that the assign¬ 
ment of these several classes of duties, or the class of minis¬ 
ters so assigned, may be called orders. The constitution only 
requires a ministry. 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


159 


CHAPTER Y. 

OUR OBLIGATIONS TO OBSERVE PRIMITIVE OR APOSTOLIC 

CUSTOMS. 

There are two classes of principles which belong essen¬ 
tially to a Church as a social organization, for they belong 
essentially to every organized government. They are the 
principles upon which are based its legal existence. 

In the one class is found its organic , or fundamental laws, 
which may be called its constitution. 

In the other is found its policy , or its prudential regula¬ 
tions, which may be called its rules, or its by-laws. 

The former is made up of things essential to the exist¬ 
ence of the government or association in its present character; 
that is, to change them, or any of them, is to change the char¬ 
acter of the association or government. The latter is made up 
of mere policy, or prudential things which the members of the 
community may, from time to time, choose to do in carrying 
out the fundamental provisions. 

Or, it may be said, the constitution, or set of fundamental 
principles, sets forth by prescription the character and end of 
the government; and the laws or measures of policy set forth 
the mode or the means agreed upon, from time to time, for 
the most successful attainment of this end. 

When we apply these principles to the Church of Christ, it 
looks extremely simple and philosophic. 

The constitution is the Divine law which enters into its 


100 THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 

government. Its system, or principles of policy, are those 
human rules which men make, from time to time, for the 
more particular ends in view. Every thing is in strict subor¬ 
dination to the constitution, but every thing is not in the 
constitution. 

Most of the unhappy disputes which the world has seen 
with regard to Church government, in all the variety of shape 
in which the controversies have been presented, have grown 
out of a misapprehension, in one way or another, with regard to 
the true discrimination between these two classes of laws. To 
mistake the one for the other leads directly into manifest error. 
The one is constitutional—essential: it is the words of God : 
in their very nature irrepealable, but of constant and univer¬ 
sal application. The other forms those matters of change 
and occasional modification, which the multifarious changes of 
circumstance and condition in the world among men around 
us require. The one is properly principle, the other policy. 

It is evident that the constitution of the Church is found 
written in the Bible; but there are many, very many things 
written in the Bible that form no part of this constitution; and, 
in discriminating between that which is and that which is not 
constitutional, we meet with much diversity of sentiment. 

Theology is in its nature constitutional. Here nothing is 
done by man. We have only to understand the Bible. 

But there are many things respecting the ministry—the 
duties and offices of the ministry, their rights, privileges, and 
powers—which are subject to a variety of modifications; as 
also in regard to the duties of Christians in many particulars: 
many things pertaining to the Church may and must be varied 
according to varying circumstances. 

Many persons inconsiderately seem to think that the acts of 
the apostles, and their fellow-Christians who lived and acted 
with them, form the Christian constitution. And hence, on 
any difference of sentiment respecting Christian duty, or 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


101 


Church order or regulation, they consider that their views arc 
triumphantly vindicated if they can find some actions in the 
apostolic Church which appear to correspond with the things 
they espouse. 

And then the question arises, Are we obliged to do every 
thing that apostolic Christians did ? Or, are ministers obliged 
to do every thing the apostles did, or that they directed or 
sanctioned among themselves and their associates in the min¬ 
istry ? 

It will not do to say that the actions of early Christians are 
to be taken as our guide, for they, in many respects, were very 
poor Christians, so far as concerned the whole round of Chris¬ 
tian faith and duty. The best, or most intelligent and philo¬ 
sophic Christians, as a general thing, that ever lived, live 
now. The Christians in the days of the apostles were for 
the most part, perhaps, very firm and zealous in regard 
to a very few prominent things of Christianity; but it 
would be strange indeed if uncultivated Jews and heathen, 
just initiated into Christianity, could be all at once pat¬ 
terns of faith and duty in all the variety of Christian char¬ 
acter. 

Nor was the conduct of the apostles themselves, by any 
means, free from objection. Besides several things intrinsi¬ 
cally wrong in their conduct, we see at one time they were so 
ignorant of the nature of the gospel ministry, that most of 
them — probably all except one—with the whole Church at 
Jerusalem, were found uttering severe censures against that 
one for preaching to the Gentiles. See Acts xi. 1, 2, 3. 

The theory of Christianity, as a system of religion, does 
not, by auy means, become known by intuition. It has to be 
learned, for it is a science. 

In most things the apostles, in their official conduct, acted 
under the restraints of inspiration. And in so far as this was 
the case, they reflected the Divine will. So that we may safely 


1G2 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


conclude that in like circumstances our conduct should follow 
theirs. 

The rule of common sense seems to be this : Leaving out 
a few acts, which evince either wickedness or weakness, their 
conduct is to be a general guide to us as far as a similarity of 
circumstances will seem to justify. In the same circumstances 
in which Paul was placed, it would be the duty of the minis¬ 
ter to hire a house and preach in it two or three or more years, 
if he could do no better. 

Such actions of the apostles, or of Christians in their day, 
as grew out of or were incident upon local or other acci¬ 
dental circumstances, are binding upon Christians only in like 
circumstances. And such actions as were abstractly Christian 
in their nature, and depended not upon incidental circum¬ 
stances, or such as were in some solemn manner enstamped 
officially and authoritatively upon the escutcheon of the Church, 
are always binding upon Christians, as far as God’s providence 
will reasonably admit. 

Great stress appears to be placed by many Christians on the 
real or supposed usages or customs of Christians in the days 
of the apostles, with regard to Church government, the func¬ 
tions of these and those offices, and the powers claimed or 
exercised by these or those persons. And it is proper that 
we inquire how far these things are binding on Christians of 
the present day. By examining with care into this question, 
we will most probably find that we have superseded the ne¬ 
cessity of determining several doubtful and perplexing ques¬ 
tions with regard to these customs or usages. 

It is contended by one school of controvertists that Chris¬ 
tians in the days of the apostles practiced an episcojial form 
of Church government. And proof of this fact is considered 
as also establishing the principle that episcopacy is, by Divine 
law, the only proper form of Church government. 

Again : the man who has been taught to favor, or who does 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 163 

favor the Presbyterial form, seeks to establish his principles 
by proving that this form of government was practiced in the 
days of the apostles. And in like manner the Baptist vindi¬ 
cates his so-called republican form of government, by an ap¬ 
peal to the history of the Church, and ,the production of proof 
that the popular form was seen in apostolic days. The Con¬ 
gregation alist is a Congregationalist because he finds Con¬ 
gregationalism in those pure and primitive days. And the 
high Church formalist is a formalist because he finds forms 
adhered to and practiced in those times. 

And so these debates are continued; but to what good end, 
is, perhaps, a question more easily asked than answered. 

It may perhaps as well be stated here as elsewhere, that 
all these controvertists are generally right as to their facts. 
They all prove the facts they seek to prove; but are all 
wrong in the conclusions they draw from premises thus 
established. 

There is no doubt that the Episcopalian can find the episco¬ 
pal element in the Church; and it is quite as true that the 
Presbyterian can find his favorite principle of parity in the 
ministry. The Baptist can without doubt find his favorite 
republicanism. The Congregationalist will be at no loss to 
find congregational government; nor will the high Church 
formalist fail in his search for forms in the apostolic worship. 

Let us now dwell here long enough to establish the fact 
set forth in this last paragraph. And if we do this, then 
what comes of all these controversies in question ? Who is 
the successful and who the defeated partisan ? And what 
is the u true” Church government ? 

Episcopacy is that form of government in which some min¬ 
isters exercise an oversight and control over other ministers 
who are in the regular pastorate. Now, surely we may be 
relieved from the necessity of proving that this kind of gov¬ 
ernment was practiced in the days of the apostles; for, 


164 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


besides the fact being notorious and unquestionable, it is 
apparent, on the first glance at Christianity, that the machin¬ 
ery of the Church could not have been set agoing without 
first having some ministers specially instructed, and then 
being placed in a position of supervisory control over others. 

Suppose there had been, from the beginning to the end of 
the Church’s career, in the days of the apostles, a perfect 
parity among all ministers. Surely we need not stop here to 
prove that in this manner the Church could not have got 
under way at all, so as to promise success. Here, at least, is 
very plain necessity for the peculiar powers and prerogatives 
possessed by the apostles, as we have already seen. 

But we are told there were other persons than the twelve 
apostles in their days who exercised control and supervisory 
care over churches and ministers. Unquestionably there was. 
For Paul sent Timothy and Titus to oversee and set in order 
the matters of Churches, to ordain ministers, and instruct 
them in their duties, etc., etc. And this is episcopacy. And 
so episcopacy was practiced by the Church in the days of 
the apostles. 

But was not ministerial parity also recognized and practiced 
in those days ? 

What is ministerial parity? It is not perfect equality 
among ministers. This is naturally impossible. There is, 
and always was, a difference among ministers as to talent, 
learning, industry, force of character, resolution and enter¬ 
prise, piety and zeal. And it is, and always was, the case, 
that the man who is foremost in any one or in most of these 
characteristics, exercises the most power in governing a 
Church, or in controlling and governing any thing else. This 
kind of power, therefore, great and unequal as it is, does not 
disturb the principle of ministerial parity. 

And likewise, it is now, and was in the days of the apostles, 
a thing which would occasionally or frequently take place, 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 165 

tliafc assistance in advice and counsel would be needed by one or 
more Churches, from those ministers and Churches who were 
more wise and more experienced. This opens the way for 
instructions or directions, amounting practically to control, 
by one or more ministers, over other ministers. 

The practical working of the Church could not, for any 
great length of time, especially in the circumstances in which 
the early Church was placed, avoid the necessity of assistance 
by Churches in somewhat distant or frontier portions, from 
the Church in the more established, experienced, and well- 
regulated places. We must remember that, in those days, 
Churches were established, and religion set agoing, in neigh¬ 
borhoods and among people who had but very recently even 
heard of Christianity. Imagine the condition of a Church 
whose pastor even is but just emerged from heathendom. 
He is zealous for the truth of Christ, but certainly very ill 
prepared to answer many important questions pertaining to 
Christianity. And there were considerable regions of country 
where the Churches were in this condition, partially or wholly. 

Now, what would be more natural, or more desirable on all 
hands, than this : that the Churches of earlier establishment, 
longer and better instructed by the apostles, should send a 
minister—call him an evangelist if you please, or whatever 
name you choose—to and among these Churches, to see how 
they do, and afford them encouragement, counsel, and assist¬ 
ance ? Among zealous Christians, in these circumstances, the 
thing would not, could not, be avoided. 

And this minister certainly, naturally, yes, unavoidably, 
governs matters to a very great extent in these Churches. 
The words which he speaks, if he speak at all, are words of 
control. It is naturally and unavoidably understood, on all 
hands, that he goes among these Churches for the purpose of 
exercising the functions of control and government. He 
governs now to an extent he would not dream of doing 


166 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


before. His authority is neither regal nor legal, in the sense 
of its being the result of legislation. But it is, nevertheless, 
real and powerful. 

Did Paul send Timothy to the Church at Ephesus, and 
give him the instructions he did, for the purpose of installing 
him into certain orders of ministerial control and authority; 
or for the purpose of effecting certain reforms in certain mat¬ 
ters in that Church ? Surely there can be but one answer to 
this question. And could Paul regulate and reform these 
matters in the Church at Ephesus in any better or more 
convenient way than to give Timothy the instructions he did ? 
Probably he could not. At least, it seems he chose this 
mode of effecting the end he had immediately in view. 

But all such like occurrences as these before-named, which 
most certainly must have taken place, and did take place, in 
the days of the apostles, as well as in every age of the Church 
since, did not in the least interfere with the principle of min¬ 
isterial parity. 

Again, straightforward regularity and good order requires 
that, oftentimes, in deliberative meetings at least, one man 
should be selected for president. Here he is invested with 
control. His presidency may last a day, and extend over the 
persons there and then present, or it may be for two days, or a 
week, a month, or a year, and extend over persons or bodies 
not then personally present. If the selection be made regu¬ 
larly and voluntarily, by those, or for the most part those 
over whom the control is to be exercised, it is for the sup¬ 
posed mutual good of the whole, and does not in the slight¬ 
est degree interfere with the principle of parity. 

Imparity is when, by divine law, some ministers are 
placed in rank above others; and which ministers exercise 
functions of control, which the ministers in the lower rank 
could not exercise under any circumstances. 

That ministerial parity, with these explanations of what is 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


167 


thereby meant, is to be found in the apostolic Church, is as 
certain as that any principle is capable of being settled by the 
Scriptures. 

It is also easily established that republicanism was found 
as an element of government in the early Church. 

The Church elected, or u appointed,” the two candidates, 
Joseph and Matthias, from between whom the new apostle 
was selected. They elected the seven deacons. And in 
other instances, according to the best historians, the Church 
was several times known to decide questions of importance by 
popular voice. 

And that the Churches in these times, as is herein-before 
explained, were congregational in their government, is beyond 
all question. By the term congregational, as a form of 
government, is meant, not that they actually did always 
govern, regulate, control, and manage all their affairs, in and 
of themselves, without any assistance or interference from or 
on the part of their brethren of other Churches. This would 
be a kind of government that was most likely never heard of. 
Certainly, unless it be in some portions thereof where, really 
and truly, government is nearly or quite dispensed with, it 
would be inconsistent with Christianity. Congregational 
government is where the congregation is not in a federate alli¬ 
ance with any other congregation. So that no other Church 
possesses, either of itself or in conjunction with others, the 
right, ministerially or executively, to interfere in the regula¬ 
tion of its affairs without the consent of such congregation. 
Or it may be said to be, where the congregation does, as a 
regular, general thing, manage its own affairs without foreign 
magisterial or cooperative assistance. 

If it is not quite, it is very nearly impossible to suppose 
that Christianity could have commenced in the country and 
in the manner it did, under the vigilant hostility of an op¬ 
posing civil government, under the sole auspices, humanly, 


168 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


of eleven liumble persecuted men, among a people very 
much given to idolatry and superstition—that Churches could 
be rapidly planted in different countries hundreds of miles 
distant, where travelling was done for the most part on foot, 
without the advantage of Bibles, books, or printing of any 
kind—-with their ministers sometimes iD prison and some¬ 
times at the stake—it is, I say, under such circumstances, 
almost impossible to suppose that Christianity could commence 
and progress, and the government never be congregational. 
To suppose this is, at least, to suppose a perpetual miracle, 
which no man does suppose. 

But what do all these things prove ? I)o they prove that 
any particular form of Church government is the imperative, 
unalterable law of Christianity ? So far from it, they prove 
not only, as has been heretofore established, that the gospel 
does not prescribe any specific form of Church government 
for Christianity in all time, but they prove that the Church, in 
the days of the apostles, did not uniformly practice any par¬ 
ticular form of government to the exclusion of all others. 

In the days of the apostles, the several forms of Church 
government were not specifically defined, arranged, and under¬ 
stood as they are now. This could not have been the case, 
for the experience of the Church was not sufficient for such a 
precise classification of the elements of government as all men 
readily recognize now. They acted, in regard to government, 
from time to time, and in places here and in places there, as 
circumstances seemed to justify or render expedient. 

They felt themselves to be on an equality, and recognized 
themselves among themselves as equals. The apostles were 
first and foremost in all things; not, however, because they 
had a higher commission , not because they had been placed 
in a higher rank , by authority, but because they had been 
highly and infallibly taught in the truths of religion—because 
they were witnesses of Christ's death and resurrection, be- 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


169 


cause they were thus qualified to lead and teach others, and 
because the nature of the circumstances they were in, and 
the relation they bore to others, placed them in this front 
rank position. How could it be otherwise? 

The Church was in circumstances then, that, in the nature 
of things, it never could be in at any subsequent time. It 
was commencing. The apostles were twelve missionaries in a 
heathen land, without any precisely defined plans of operation; 
without the experience of ministers, usually; without books 
or Bibles; without external or civil sympathy or protection; 
without a “ parent Board” to look to, but with Jewish preju¬ 
dices and disadvantageous customs, both in themselves and 
others, to contend with. They had to take the world raw and 
uncultivated, as they found it, and not in the prepared condi¬ 
tion of even our foreign missions of the present day. 

They had something to do besides sit down and arrange 
metaphysical classifications of the elements of government, 
and distribute and locate them here and there in nicely ad¬ 
justed proportions among these, those, and the other incum¬ 
bents or aspirants. This was not the work their Master 
placed in their hands, nor was it a work which seemed to pre¬ 
sent itself before them. They commenced vigorously and 
continued industriously to propagate religion , to promulgate 
and enforce the great truths which Christ had but so recently 
taught them. 

Hence, in their ecclesiastical proceeding, we find somewhat 
of all the several elements of government usually applied to 
Churches, as men have since those days classified and defined 
these several elementary principles. 

We see supervisory control over ministers and Churches; 
that is Episcopacy. We see, as to rank, an entire equality 
among ministers; that is Presbyterianism. We see congre¬ 
gations governing themselves independently; that is Congre¬ 
gationalism. We see ministers and laymen mingling together, 
8 


170 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


consulting, determining, and electing to office; that is Repub¬ 
licanism. 

They could not well have avoided this state of things if 
they had tried, which they certainly did not, for they saw 
nothing wrong in it. They could not well have done other- ! 
wise, however, for two reasons. 1. It was, as far as a change 
of circumstances would allow, about the way they had been 
accustomed to do in the Jewish synagogue. 2. The external 
circumstances seemed naturally to lead them in the course 
they pursued. 

And hence we conclude that the acts and doings of the 
apostles and their fellow-Christians, even where we are able to 
trace them with certainty, do not form specific and determi¬ 
nate directions for Christians in all after-time, except it be in 
the following cases: 

1. When such actions, in the nature of the thing, pertain to 
religious truth and conduct, in all possible human circum¬ 
stances. 

2. When they amount to specific command, coming from 
the Saviour through the apostles. 

3. When such acts clearly amount to an institution of the 
gospel. 

The apostles and early Christians observed and kept the 
day of Pentecost. Must we therefore do it? If we are 
strictly to follow their example, we must. But the plain 
truth is, the apostles and early Christians did many thiugs in 
and about the affairs of the Church which were brought about 
by local circumstances, and they are therefore not binding 
upon Christians in after-time. 

We have seen also, that the apostles, for some time at least, 
were members of Jewish synagogues. It is not therefore, 
however, necessary we should be. 

So far as we know, it was the custom of the early Church 
to administer the Lord’s Supper in the congregations every 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


171 


Sabbath day. But this is not considered absolutely binding 
upon Christians now. The Supper was first administered in a 
large upper room; but it is not therefore necessary it always 
should be thereafter. The early Churches, as congregations, 
elected their bishops, that is, their pastors ) but it is not con¬ 
sidered binding upon us to do so. Possible circumstances 
might or might not advise it. 

And so, also, there were evangelists in those days, who were 
Church officers. They were under the control of the supe¬ 
rior Church officers, and were superior, in an official sense, to 
the regular pastorate, for they regulated and controlled their 
affairs. But we have no such regulations now. 

“ Country bishops” were then a regular order in the ministry. 
They were inferior to the city bishop, but superior to the 
presbyter. But we have no such office in the Church now. 
The thirteenth canon of the Council of Ancyra, which was 
held in A. D. 315, says : “It is not allowed to village bishops 
to ordain presbyters or deacons; nor is it allowed even to city 
presbyters to do this in another diocese without the license of 
the bishop.” 

It would seem, therefore, that the rule, as to how far we 
are bound to conform our conduct to facts which transpired 
in the acts and doings of the apostles, is plain and simple, 
and ought to be easily understood. 


172 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


CHAPTER VI. 

# A 

NO FORM OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT CAN BE, EXCLUSIVELY, 

THE LEGAL FORM. 

We liave seen that the Saviour did not prescribe any par¬ 
ticular form of Church polity. We have also seen that the 
apostles, and the Church under their direction, did not prac¬ 
tice any particular form of Church government to the exclu¬ 
sion of all others, according to the commonly received classi¬ 
fication of forms of ecclesiastical government. And it now 
remains to be seen that no exclusive form of government 
could have been prescribed for the Church in all time, with¬ 
out great detriment to Christianity. 

And we remark, in the first place, that the thing would be, 
in itself, well-nigh if not quite impracticable. 

Church government is human government. That is, it is 
a government carried on and administered in all things by 
human officers. The theocracy is ended. There are but two 
absolute or natural forms of human government, whether 
such government be applied to a family, a small or large asso¬ 
ciation, a Church, or a state. These are, a perfect monarchy , 
and a perfect democracy . The former is where all the ele¬ 
ments of government are lodged in the hands of one person; 
and the latter, where they are equally divided amongst all. 
Among civilized people it is quite clear that neither of these 
forms ever existed, practically. All human government is a 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


173 


modification or mixture of these two absolute or elementary 
forms. This modification may be made in a thousand differ¬ 
ent ways. That is to say, a government—applied to any 
human affairs, no matter what—may have in it more or less 
of either of these original elements. And this infusion of 
either one of these original elements may be, in every con¬ 
ceivable degree of proportion, located in any one, or in any 
number of an almost numberless set of functionaries. 

Human government, applied to no matter what, is, for the 
sake of convenience, generally classified into the following 
denominations : Monarchy, Aristocracy, and Republic. Nei¬ 
ther of these forms, however, is pure: they always inter¬ 
mingle and intermix with each other in a thousand degrees 
of proportion. No two governments on earth, civil, ecclesi¬ 
astical, social, or domestic, were ever precisely alike. That 
where the monarchical principle preponderates, or where it 
rules pretty largely, is called a monarchy. That which has a 
pretty large infusion of the aristocratic principle, is called an 
aristocracy. And where the republican principle predomi¬ 
nates, or ranges pretty largely, it is called a republic. Every 
government on earth, however, from that which exists in a 
family of two persons in the utmost conceivable harmony, up 
to the rule of Alexander the Great, or the frantic tyranny of 
Nero, possesses, in some degree, each of these several forms 
or elementary principles. They are modifications of pure 
monarchy and pure democracy. 

In the Church, the names of these forms of government are 
changed, for the sake of good taste and convenience. The 
principles, however, are inviolate, because they are principles. 

The highest or most stringent form of ecclesiastical govern¬ 
ment which has existed in practice, is the episcopacy of 
Popery. And the lowest form is, perhaps, to be found in some 
modern denominations of the Baptist Church. Here we fre¬ 
quently find the principles of government so loosely adjusted 


174 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


that it almost or quite ceases to he government at all. Every 
Church government, however, on earth, is made up of a mix¬ 
ture of pure or absolute episcopacy, and of pure or absolute 
democracy. And the various degrees of this admixture, in 
greater or lesser proportions, is called, respectively, Episco¬ 
pacy, Presbyterianism, or popular Congregationalism. 

The Church of England is episcopal; and the Wesleyan 
Methodists, right alongside, might, in a subordinate sense, 
be said to be also episcopal. But who does not see that 
the former government possesses ten-fold more of the pure 
episcopal principle than the latter? In the former case 
the bishops hold their office for life, and in the latter they are 
merely the presidents or overseers of the Conference, elected 
annually. Here in our own country the Protestant Episcopal 
Church is episcopal, and so are the Methodist Episcopal 
Churches. Yet it is apparent to the most casual observer that 
the former is far more episcopal than the latter. 

Let an axiom be laid down here. If it be previously de¬ 
termined in the Scriptures that the Christian Church must be 
episcopal in its government, that is the same as to define pre¬ 
cisely the functions of a bishop and the exact character of 
the government of the Church, so far as the episcopate forms 
a part of it. If the original prescription does not settle spe¬ 
cifically all questions of this sort, they can never be settled 
afterwards, in the very nature of the case. If the original 
grant does not settle specifically all questions of this sort, 
but merely prescribes that in Church government some min¬ 
isters must exercise supervisory control over other ministers 
and Churches, a hundred questions may afterwards arise as 
to how much or how little authority the bishop must have in 
order for the government of the Church to conform to the 
grant. And to settle these questions is to do no more nor 
less than to settle almost every question that can arise with 
regard to Church government. 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


175 


Suppose the Constitution of the United States prescribed 
that the government of States, in order to be admissi¬ 
ble into the Union—that is, in order to be legal—must be 
republican, and had left the matter there: this would have 
admitted any thing into the Union that chose to call itself 
republican. If there be no perpetually existing power to 
determine, in each particular case, whether its republicanism 
conforms to the meaning of the prescription, then the pre¬ 
scription amounts to nothing. A stringent republic is but a 
liberal aristocracy. 

Now, suppose it had been said in the Scriptures that Church 
government must be episcopal. That is determining nothing, 
or almost nothing. For the following questions arise, and re¬ 
main to be answered: 

Is it to be the episcopacy of the absolute rule of bishops, 
unchecked and uncontrolled, and kept in being by the absolute 
power of the order ? 

Or is it to be the episcopacy of Popery, which is somewhat 
modified, where the bishop is dependent for his power and its 
continuance, in some small degree, upon others ? Or, if Romish 
episcopacy be meant, what distinct power is to be placed in 
the hands of the pope, the patriarch, the primate, the 
archbishop, the cardinal, and the bishop, respectively ? 
Are all these several orders to be continued ? or if some may 
be dispensed with, what ones ? Is the episcopate or the pres- 
byterate, either, or both, or which one, a sacrament ? 

Or suppose the episcopacy of the Church of England be 
meant: then several questions arise. Is the King, or per¬ 
chance the Queen, to be the head of the Church ? that is, 
the chief of the bishops? Or if the government chances 
to have no sovereign, what then ? Must there be archbishops ? 
and if so, what distinct authority must they possess ? Must 
the prelates have a seat in the civil legislature ? and if so, in 
which branch, if there be more branches than one ? Must 


176 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


they have one, or more than one vote, and in what cases ? 
(English episcopacy gives each prelate a seat in the House of 
Peers, and a vote on all questions, and, in some classes of 
questions, two votes, one as bishop and one as lord.) Must 
bishops have power to ordain beyond the limits of their own 
government ? (According to English episcopacy, they have 
not.) Then, if the territory of any supposed government 
be partly, or mostly, or wholly subjugated by other govern¬ 
ments, what then ? 

Then, if English episcopacy be not meant by scriptural 
episcopacy, let us look elsewhere. 

Is that of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United 
States meant? Here there are no archbishops. Nor have 
the prelates, ex officio, any civil power. But there are sev¬ 
eral questions pertaining essentially to the episcopacy to be 
answered. In this Church the prelates form a “ House of 
Bishops,’’ which is a coordinate branch of a “ General Con¬ 
vention,” which composes its legislature. The vote of both 
houses is necessary for the passage of any act. Now, must 
the authority of the bishops be thus trammelled and controlled 
by clerical and lay delegates of a convention ? or must they 
have power of themselves to control the Church ? The 
bishops, singly or in the aggregate, have not the power of 
electing other bishops. Now, in “scriptural” episcopacy, 
must each bishop have the power of electing his successor ? 
or, how many bishops may elect a bishop ? or, may all the 
bishops in that Church collectively exercise that power ? or, 
may the bishops and clergy, and how many of the other clergy, 
elect bishops ? Or must laymen, and if so, what or how many 
laymen, join in the election of a bishop ? Episcopacy in this 
Church prescribes that a bishop must be at least thirty years 
of age before his ordination. Then, would episcopacy be 
valid if the man to be ordained were only twenty-nine ? or, 
what is the age of eligibility for scriptural episcopacy ? In 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 177 

other Churches sometimes they were ten , sometimes five years 
of age. Must a bishop, in order to be a valid bishop, as in 
this Church, as a condition for ordination, promise, among 
other things—and what other things?—to “conform to the doc¬ 
trines and worship of the Protestant Episcopal Church in 
these United States ?” Must he have power to ordain a min¬ 
ister by prerogative, or by what concurrent authority ? Must 
he or must he not have power to withhold or refuse his in¬ 
stallation of a minister, as pastor of a particular church, 
when he has been elected to such pastorate by such church ? 
This Is an element of episcopacy in the Church in question. 

And if the episcopacy of the Protestant Episcopal Church 
be found not to be a correct definition of the episcopacy we 
are in search of, let us look into the episcopacy of the 
Methodist Church; for here also is “episcopacy.” 

In this Church episcopal jurisdiction is common among all 
the bishops. Is this a scriptural element of episcopacy ? or, 
would it do if jurisdiction were special and restricted ? May 
they or may they not have sub-bishops under them, like the 
presiding elders in this Church? Is a joint and common 
presidency incident to scriptural episcopacy ? and if so, as is 
the case in the Church now before us, what is to be done in 
possible cases of disputes for the right of the chair ? Must 
the bishop have the right of appointing the pastors of the 
churches arbitrarily ? If they have not the right of electing 
their own colleagues and successors, who has ? May laymen 
participate in such elections ? In an episcopal Church, as is 
the case in the Church now before us, may elders ordain, if 
there be no bishop? Must bishops necessarily hold their 
office for life ? Or, if during good behavior, who are to be the 
judges of good behavior—the Court of Bishops, as in the 
Protestant Episcopal Church, or “ twelve travelling elders,” 
with the right of appeal to the General Conference, sitting as 
a court of appeals ? 

8 * 


178 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


Or, let us suppose a case. Here is an Episcopal Church 
where bishops are elected and solemnly set apart to a general 
or special oversight of the Church every year: the term of 
service expiring and the successor regularly taking the va¬ 
cated post annually. It stipulates that in the event of a 
bishop not being present at the annual conventions, a presi¬ 
dent shall be elected from among the elders, who shall ordain 
others to the ministry. No bishop shall be eligible to reelec¬ 
tion. Every bishop must be at least eighteen years of age. 
They shall be elected by all the churches, each member 
having one vote. The bishops are amenable, upon charges 
of heresy or immorality, to the church nearest where they 
reside respectively. 

This is, beyond all question, an Episcopal Church : as much 
so as is Rome, or u The Establishment.” 

We have of course nothing to do here now with questions 
of expediency. 

Now, everyone of the foregoing questions relates, essentially 
and primarily, to the specific functions of episcopacy. Not 
one of them is an inquiry of mere expediency aside from an 
illustration of u episcopacy.” And before it can be with cer¬ 
tainty determined what “ episcopacy” is, in precise contradis¬ 
tinction to what it is not , every one of these questions must 
be answered; yea, and a hundred more similar ones that 
might be asked. 

Nothing is more true than the possibility of forming twenty, 
or five times twenty, different Church governments, each one 
of which shall be episcopal, and all of which shall range 
from a higher point of ecclesiastical despotism than there 
ever existed among men, down to as low a point of democratic 
rule as could be properly called a government at all. In fact, 
episcopacy does exist under a great variety of forms of Church 
government. 

It follows then, necessarily, that if you can conclude from 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


179 


any thing you find in the Scriptures, or out of the Scriptures, 
that an apostolic Church must be u episcopal,” you have de¬ 
termined almost nothing with regard to what kind of a gov¬ 
ernment it must have; that is, how episcopal, or how popular 
it must be. 

How much of the episcopal element must a Church have 
in order to be episcopal ? That question cannot be answered 
categorically. 

In the very nature of government—as has already been 
shown — Church government, or the government of any 
thing else—there are but two absolute elementary kinds. 1. 
That which is perfectly absolute, in the hands of one person 
exclusively. 2. That which is equally divided among all. 
And different forms of actual government, it must be remem¬ 
bered, is only another name for the various modifications of 
absolute concentration on the one hand, and perfect distribu¬ 
tion on the other. And, in strict philosophy of thought, there 
have been as many of these modifications as there have been 
governments among men,—civil, ecclesiastical, literary, mone¬ 
tary, social, domestic. 

Then, what is necessary to be done in order for it to be 
prescribed in Scripture, or anywhere else, what kind of a 
government the Church must have? A complete discipline 
must be set forth. Surely nothing short of this will answer 
that question. 

Certainly it could be prescribed that government must be 
episcopal, or that it must be presbyterial; but this determines 
but little; for it may be episcopal, and be a more stringent 
government than perhaps ever existed; or it may be episco¬ 
pal, and be as liberal a government as the most liberal could 
desire. 

We might, likewise, if it were deemed necessary, proceed 
to look over the presbyterial form of government, as we have 
done the episcopal, in order to determine, scripturally, or by 


180 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


any other standard, what it was; and we should find it neces¬ 
sary to make quite as many inquiries, and to quite as little 
purpose, as we have done about episcopacy. 

It is not claimed—cannot for a moment be claimed, by the 
stoutest advocate of the most stringent episcopacy—that it 
has but one single element that is peculiar to itself, and which 
does not in any degree enter into other forms of government, 
or pertain to the ministry in common. That is the exclusive 
right to ordain , under all possible circumstances. This is 
merely apostolic succession set forth in other words. This we 
will look at in future. 

Then there is, philosophically and practically, no distinct 
and decidedly marked difference between episcopal govern¬ 
ment and presbyterial government. 

With regard to the different forms of government, and of 
the conformity, in various degrees, of Church government to 
the various forms of civil government, or the infusion into the 
several forms of Church government of the principle of mon¬ 
archy, of aristocracy, or of republicanism, it ought, perhaps, 
to be incidentally remarked— 

That our political principles by which we, in this country, 
are so strongly attached to republicanism, are likely some¬ 
times, perhaps, to lead us into error. No man is abstractly 
in favor of, or opposed to, monarchical, aristocratical, or repub¬ 
lican government. For the government of the state, we are 
all in favor of the latter, and opposed to the two former. But 
still, nothing is more common among us than aristocratic or 
monarchical government. Domestic government is monarch¬ 
ical. Social government—the government of most kinds of 
merely social voluntary societies—is usually a mixture of 
republicanism and aristocracy. The government of schools, 
colleges, literary societies, banks, business or monetary asso¬ 
ciations, or mechanical or scientific societies, is almost exclu¬ 
sively monarchical or aristocratical, or mixtures of these ex- 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


181 


tremes. The government of the Church—of all Churches in 
this country—is partly aristocratic, with an infusion, in a 
greater or less degree, of the principles, respectively, of mon¬ 
archy and republicanism. This must necessarily be the case, 
so long as ministers are, ex officio , the leaders, overseers, super¬ 
visors, feeders of the flock. 

All this remark, however, is thrown in by way of parenthe¬ 
sis, and does not logically belong to the scientific argument 
now before us. 

It is impossible for the Scriptures to have prescribed any 
particular kind, or form, of Church government for all time, 
from the further consideration that this involved the indis¬ 
pensable necessity of also prescribing the same thing with 
regard to civil government in all time. To determine the one, 
it became also necessary to determine the other. 

And for the following reasons : 

It belongs to the civil magistrate alone to determine how 
far the state shall participate in the government of the Church. 
Whether this ought to be so, is another question; and for 
this participation to have been prohibited, would be to regu¬ 
late the civil government. 

It is a fact, this day, that the supreme officer in the Church 
of England is a woman by the name of Victoria. This 
woman—or if the office were held by a man, it is the same 
thing—is an officer, and the first officer, in the Church, by 
virtue of the civil office which she fills. Now, if you change 
this feature in the government of the Church of England, 
you make a very essential modification of it; and it depends 
exclusively upon the civil government of Great Britain to de¬ 
termine whether this, as well as many other features in that 
Church, shall or shall not be changed. 

It is in the exclusive power of the king and parliament to 
change or modify the government of that Church at pleasure. 
The civil government established episcopacy in that Church, 


182 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


as it now exists \ and continues it there from year to year. It 
is perfectly within its power to change it to-morrow—to dis¬ 
place episcopacy altogether—and prescribe that it shall be 
presbyterial, of this, that, or the other modification. 

There is not, this day, a Church government on the earth, 
good or bad, right or wrong, that is not what it is by pre¬ 
scription or sufferance of the legislature of the land where it 
is located. 

A few years ago, the Church and the state were united in 
the same government in this country. And why are they 
not now? Not, surely, by any thing the Church did or 
could do. The Church alone had no power to change its 
form of government, or to determine what it should be. But 
simply because the legislatures of the States—Virginia first, 
and Massachusetts last—between the years 1785 and 1833, 
enacted that the two governments should be separate from 
and measurably independent of each other. 

The 'possibility of the Church and the state being united, 
or in any way, or to any extent, mingling with each other, by 
virtue of the action of the state solely, renders it clearly 
impracticable that any form of Church government could 
have been prescribed in the Scriptures. 

And, moreover, the government of every state in this country 
does, and all civil government should, to some extent, regu¬ 
late all other governments existing within its jurisdiction. 
The civil laws do, and should, to some extent, regulate the 
government of the family, of schools and colleges, of planta¬ 
tions, of prisons, of armies, of Masons and Odd-Fellows, of 
banks, of railroad companies, of steamboats, of churches, etc., 
etc. How far the civil government ought to go in its super- 
visorship of these governments, in each particular case, is 
another question, and to determine which, is to make laws in 
the civil legislature, or to regulate civil government. 

It is clear, then, that to prescribe any particular thing as 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


183 


to the form of government of a family, or a school, or a 
Church, or the like, is to prescribe with regard to civil gov¬ 
ernment; for the civil government may prescribe otherwise. 
The Scriptures prescribe that children shall be obedient to 
their parents : that the wife shall be subject to the husband : 
that Church members shall be subject to those who have the 
rule over them. This merely enjoins submission and subor¬ 
dination in very general terms, but prescribes nothing as to 
any form of proceeding in either case. 

We come next to inquire, whether a uniform system of 
Church government would not be likely to frustrate and 
defeat the whole scheme of the gospel ? The Church is an 
institution of the gospel. 

The gospel is a practical system, designed for men—just 
such men as live here in this world; and is precisely fitted and 
adapted to the particular circumstances and condition of all 
men in all possible states and relations. The Church, as a 
useful and proper institution of the gospel, designed to 
accompany it wherever it goes, must also be adapted, and in 
like manner capable of subsisting, in efficiency and strength, 
in all conceivable human conditions. Look at the almost 
endless variety of human conditions and circumstances. Now, 
the design is, evidently, that in all these conditions the 
Church shall subsist in all conceivable healthfulness and 
vigor. 

The design, nay, the command, of the Almighty is, that 
every man shall live every day in Church fellowship. No mat¬ 
ter where he may chance to be, or in what age he may live, 
the design is that he live in Church fellowship. It may not 
be practicable for him at any particular time to enter into 
this fellowship, if he be not now in it; but this is the fault 
of himself and of other men. The rule is for every living 
man to live in the personal and immediate fellowship of the 
Church of Christ. 


184 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


And to what a variety of circumstances the Church and 
the government of the Church must adapt itself! Here, for 
instance, is a most enlightened and religious community, 
where the minister holds a position scarcely above mediocrity 
amongst the people. There the people are exceedingly un¬ 
learned and ignorant. Here, again, they are almost all 
vicious, ignorant, stupid, and sensual; and there is a mis¬ 
sionary station among savages. Here is benighted, degraded, 
idolatrous China. Here is a ship’s company, away far, far 
upon the ocean. Would the same form of Church govern¬ 
ment be best adapted to all these circumstances, no matter 
what form may be supposed ? Here is an army under mili¬ 
tary discipline, and under a government opposed to Christian¬ 
ity; and there are a thousand prisoners of war, away on an 
island of the sea. Here are fishermen and petty tradesmen, 
along the shores of Lake Gennesaret; and there is Athens, 
the patroness of art and science. There are three hundred 
American Congressmen. There are the slaves on Southern 
plantations. There are the hordes of North American Indians. 
There are large and long exploring expeditions, by sea or 
by land. There are the sailors of a man-of-war : the colliers 
of England : the emigrants upon the plains of the West: the 
priest-ridden Papists of Rome : the superstitious Creoles of 
Mexico : the half-way or complete revolutionists of Cuba or 
South America. 

Now, is the thing in itself naturally and philosophically 
possible, to adjust any one specific form of Church govern¬ 
ment to the condition and circumstances of this variety of 
people, so that that form be certainly best calculated to promote 
their spiritual condition ? Surely this would not be adapting 
Christianity to the circumstances and condition of men at all. 
It would be to require them to adapt the world to the gospel. 
Whereas, nothing is peremptory in religion except its faith in 
Christ. No external form, no outward habiliment, no mere 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


185 


ceremony, attitude of the body, or utterance of the tongue, is 
peremptory and absolute in religion. 

But, further, it may be safely supposed that the world has 
as yet seen very little of human condition; and we are there¬ 
fore very incapable of judging or speaking of its variety. It 
is presumable that the whole history of the world’s entire age 
has as yet presented but a fragment to the eye of human 
observation. We look back a few days and years through the 
successions of a few almanacs, and we call these times ancient. 
A little shorter view, and these years were old times : the last 
century comprises the later ages of the world; and thus we 
talk and teach what we call chronology. But perhaps chro¬ 
nology has as yet scarcely numbered its first incipient datable 
period. Perhaps the Church has as yet scarcely emerged into 
a proper infancy. Who are to see the ruddy buddings of its 
childhood ? What is to be the condition and circumstances 
of its youth ? What is to be the condition of the Church as 
the world passes on, and on, in its hasteless pace, through 
cycle after cycle of a thousand years or centuries each, and 
rises, after a while, into early manhood ? And how are things 
to look, and what things are to be, during the adult periods 
of the Church, and its progress, if that term means any thing, 
in its sere old age ? What are twenty, a hundred, a thousand 
millions of years ? Is it a long time for a world to live ? If 
so, then what is about the average age for a world ? 

These are long periods as compared with the life of a man, 
whose age is three-score and ten years, or the life of a fly, 
whose age is an hour; but that is not the question. Are they 
long periods as compared with the life of a world ? And what 
changes are society and the face of the world to pass through ? 
Look at the present condition of civilization and civil polity. 
Look at Africa and China. Look at Mohammedanism and 
Popery. How long are missionaries to be necessary ? Most 
likely but a very short time, for the world is a small one—has 


186 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


but few people, never can have many : it must soon be reduced 
to moral and civil subjection; and the church-going bell will 
most likely in a thousand or a million of years be heard all over 
it. We look for great changes to take place in a few, or a few 
thousand years, in the state of learning, science, infidelity, and 
such things. How long will infidelity exist in the world ? 

Now, all these suggestions, and many others that might be 
named, indicate the probability that the battles of the gospel 
will be fought on a thousand different fields, with many differ¬ 
ent kinds of weapons, in many different ways, and with a 
variety of results. The armies of the Lord must address 
themselves to the armies of sin, according to the position and 
circumstances of the latter. Millennial dawn will burst upon 
the world some day; and who knows what that will be? 
Outright opposition to religion will then be at an end; but 
the warfare is still to be prosecuted, no one knows how long, 
on other grounds. 

Now, is it possible that the functions of government could 
be so arranged, once for all, once for all time and all possible 
conditions and circumstances, so as to be best adapted to 
answer the ends of Christianity in this endless variety of 
mutation and human condition ? The thing is not possible. 

But the difficulty is heightened immeasurably from the 
further consideration that what we call government , in a 
Church, is not a thing primarily and naturally essential to 
Christianity at all. Disciplinary rule, or coercive authority, or 
the arm of government, is in its nature incidental, evanescent, 
and of doubtful and uncertain utility, except at the moment. 
Ecclesiastical discipline is only necessary because of the exist¬ 
ence of some things which may not, nay, which certainly will 
not, continue to exist as long as the Church does. It was 
necessary for the well-being of the Church in the days of the 
apostles, and it is necessary now; but it is only necessary 
because of the incidental condition of the world in respect to 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 187 

sin and sinfulness. Of what utility is coercive discipline, 
with the Church and the world in a staid, settled condition of 
millennial peace and progress ? 

Who can measure precisely the difference between mundane 
millennial beatitude, and that higher state of bliss which is 
the final state and reward of the faithful in Christ ? And 
hence who can tell whether Christianity is, or is not, in its 
nature, capable, under possible circumstances, of carrying the 
world forward in morals and religion to regions beyond where 
it is possible for coercive government to make its way? We 
are warranted in believing that the world is, in its future his¬ 
tory, to pass through scenes and periods of bliss, and holi¬ 
ness, and peace, and concord, and love, and harmony, oneness 
of aim, and mutual and spontaneous benevolence and love to 
God and love to man, quite incompatible with our notions of 
legal restraint and compulsory process, which are the elements, 
and aims, and instruments of government. 

That “ thousand years” of apocalyptic measurement is to 
be a part of the world's history. And who knows how many 
almanac years that period will comprise?—what kind of 
government shall be called scriptural , and who shall conduct 
the controversy when the world of mankind “ shall be priests 
of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand 
years?” What use will the world have for “ episcopacy,” 
with which to keep the world, or rather the Church, in order, 
when “all kings shall fall down before him, and all nations 
shall serve him ?” “ The mountain of the Lord’s house is to 

be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be 
exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow into it.” 
The “ sword” of authority shall become the instrument of 
husbandry ; the “ spear” of coercion shall change its vocation 
so far as totally and finally to leave its former employment and 
become the pruner of the fig tree. War and strife shall 
cease, all eyes shall look in the same direction, all hearts shall 


188 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


pulsate harmoniously, neither shall they learn war any more. 
“The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness 
of men shall be bowed down, and the Lord alone shall be 
exalted in that day.” “ They shall not hurt nor destroy in all 
my holy mountain ; for the earth shall be full of the know¬ 
ledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” 

And when this shall be the condition of the world, must 
we have the “authority” of the “bishop” to keep the Church 
in awe and in order? Could we not with safety dispense 
with his rule when “ kings shall be thy nursing-fathers, and 
their queens thy nursing-mothers ?” What is the object, what 
the aim, what is the purpose and intention of government in 
the Church? 

And, moreover, Church government, as a concomitant of 
Christianity, is not essentially different from civil government. 
They ought to be, and will be, one and the same thing. It 
would not be expedient to have them united in the present 
condition of the world. So think most men who have seen 
the experiment of severance fairly tried. But this is only a 
question of incidental expediency. There is no reason grow¬ 
ing out of the nature of man’s constitution which requires the 
severance. The reason why they ought not to be united now 
is because of the prevalence or existence of sin in the world. 
Let all men become holy. Let the time come when the world 
shall be filled with real Christians, and continue full by early 
regeneration. Let the time come when uniformly such shall 
be the prevalence of piety and the rule of Christ, that the 
period of incipient moral accountability, and the period of 
sound conversion to God, and the practice of sound Christi¬ 
anity, shall blend together and open out simultaneously in 
early life; and when there shall be no “ world” outside of the 
Church; and then surely “the kingdom and dominion, and 
the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall 
be given to the people of the saints of the Most High, whose 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


189 


kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall 
serve and obey him.” 

The coercive rules of moral regimen, and the functionaries 
of legislation, of judicature, and of executive, for men, as 
members of Christ’s Church , in contradistinction to men of 
the world generally, shall cease with the reasons for their 
institution. 

Sectarian divisions, within proper limits, and consequent 
division of Church government, are believed, by the writer 
at least, to be useful, if not necessary, under the pre¬ 
sently existing circumstances. But who can tell how long 
they will be useful, or how long they will exist ? Looking 
even but a little way into this unexplored sea of mutation, 
and viewing even faintly the many radical changes and trans¬ 
formations which lie evidently upon the face of the future, 
who can tell how long u Church government” will be known 
in the world, otherwise than in the history of the past ? 

The essential functions of government , and of ministry , 
are so far from being identical, that they are philosophically 
inconsistent and antagonistic. The one is rule , and the other 
is service. Temporary expediency, and nothing but tempo¬ 
rary expediency, the existence of external sin in the world, 
requires that, for the present, they should be vested in the 
same person. We expect to do better, however, so soon as 
the condition of the world and the condition of the Church 
will allow of our doing better. But what then will become 
of the natural functions of government, or how they will be 
distributed, or what will be the distinction, or whether there 
will be a distinction between Church and State , or by what 
gradual and lengthened processes these changes will come 
about, no one can tell. 

The Christian religion is always necessarily the same, 
because God and his word are the same, and because the con¬ 
stitution of man, as it was originally established, is not inter- 


190 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


fered with. But the external circumstances, or mere habili¬ 
ments of Christianity, are matters of temporary expediency, 
and must change with the changes of external things around 
us, iu order for religion to be regarded the same in essence 
and practice. 

There is not in the word of God a precept or prescription 
that is merely arbitrary. 

The system of the gospel is but a full development of 
the system of man’s constitution in the circumstances in 
which he chances to be found. There is not a precept, com¬ 
mand, direction, prescription, suggestion, or recommendation, 
in the Bible, the reason for which is not found in the moral, 
mental, or physical constitution of man and the circumstances 
by which he is surrounded. It is precisely because he is just 
the creature he is—because he is endowed with the faculties 
and nature he has; because these faculties and nature are 
perverted and subverted just as they are; because his spiritual 
enemy, within and without, is precisely what he is; and be¬ 
cause the mercies of God yearn over him just as they do— 
that every particular single provision in the Bible is arranged 
and modified just as it is. The philosophic exactness with 
which every thing in the Bible is adjusted and fitted to suit 
and benefit man, just exactly as he is, is inconceivably precise 
and definite. Look at what he is required to do, in every 
detail and minutia, and then mark the natural and benefi¬ 
cial results that unavoidably follow a strict compliance with 
the Divine precepts. See how exactly every particular thing 
written for man in the Scriptures corresponds to the particular 
things found in man and his nature and circumstances. 

Now, the supposition of a Divinely prescribed form of 
Church government, involves the idea, and is inseparable 
from the idea, that there is a corresponding segment in man’s 
constitution looking to and calling for this precise form of 
government. And is it too much to say that this notion does 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


191 


not rise above an absurdity ? There is nothing in the Scrip¬ 
tures which is purely arbitrary—nothing in the Scriptures 
that is not based upon a reason. 

The questions, What function of government, and in what 
degree, shall be placed in the hands of this officer, and what 
in that? whether certain jurisdiction shall extend here or 
be restricted there? whether this minister shall preside in 
this assembly, or that one in that? whether there shall be 
class-leaders, and what shall be their duties ? whether there 
shall be presiding elders, or bishops, and what shall be their 
duties? whether there shall be annual or biennial confer¬ 
ences or synods ? and whether these assemblies, or some 
other body or individual, shall act judicially or executively?— 
these, and many other questions that might be asked, which 
pertain essentially to the government of the Church, are 
questions that no man can answer categorically. They are 
questions that do not pertain to Christianity essentially, 
and can only be answered on grounds of expediency alone, 
and by first taking a view of the Church and the world, if, 
perchance, at the time, the human family should be capable 
of being so distinguished. In a thousand, or ten thousand 
years or ages afterwards, if the same questions be asked, the 
duties of several officers will be vested in one, or be dispensed 
with altogether, and other changes will be made, according to 
the demands of the times. 

When an uneducated youth shall not be found in all the 
land; when a higher condition of science and learning than 
is now found in the best classes of our best colleges shall be 
common in all classes; when the morals of all classes of 
society shall present a better appearance than the best por¬ 
tions of our best Churches do now ; must Church government 
be precisely the same it ought now to be at our missionary 
stations? Let it be repeated, that Christianity is precisely 
suited to mankind in all possible circumstances and conditions. 


192 THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 

But Church government is a mere incident or institution of 
the gospel ) and therefore in its nature can have no immov¬ 
able axioms. It cannot be universally adapted and fitted, 
because its very existence is only incidentally necessary. 

Take any particular form of government you may, modify 
and arrange it as you may, and apply it to the Church in all 
possible conditions the world can be placed in, in the ample 
and varying providence of God, and see what difficulties you 
will encounter, and what disadvantages you will incur. The 
Lord wisely avoided all these obstacles in the way of religion, 
by leaving Church government an open question, in the hands 
of wise and pious men. 

And again. What is Church government intended for? 
In regard to what things are governors to govern ? What 
questions are they to decide ? What actions are they to con¬ 
trol ? Are they to govern in matters pertaining to religion ? 
By no manner of means ! Ecclesiastical functionaries have 
no sort of right to govern, or attempt to govern, except in 
matters of mere temporary incidental expediency, relating to 
external conduct. It is presumed that outside of rank Bo- 
manism it will not for a moment be held that Church officers 
may govern any persons, other than themselves, in matters of 
religion. So far as all matters of religion are concerned, 
there is the Bible, written and published once for all. That, 
and that only, is the government that the world or the Church 
can properly have. 

Then what is more probable—nay, what is more certain— 
since Church government can only reach to such matters as 
are in their nature incidental, and grow out of ignorance and 
departures from the gospel—what is to be looked for with 
greater certainty, in some part of the world’s history, than 
the time when a judicial or an executive office in the Church 
will be a mere sinecure—when a staff of authority will be as 
useless as a wand of moonshine ? That changes tending to 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


193 


this condition of things stand out in the distant future, and 
are clearly discernible, both on the page of prophecy and of 
nature, is clear and indisputable. 

Church government is not, cannot be, an inherent ingre¬ 
dient of the gospel. It is, when necessary at all, only inci¬ 
dentally necessary. It is liable to changes so great that in 
one age of the world it may be a thing quite different from 
what it is at another time. If men who live now were to see 
it ten thousand years hence, in all probability they would be 
unable to recognize a single feature in it. It was practiced 
in Palestine in the days of the apostles, for the same reason 
it is here now—it was at that time necessary for the well¬ 
being of the Church. But Palestine and the apostles are 
but just passed by us. We can almost touch them, so close 
are we upon their heels. The apostles lived but yesterday; 
and the prophets but a span behind them. Our successors, 
in a few, or a few thousand, or a few millions of generations, 
will class us with the apostles—almost with them, only eight¬ 
een or nineteen centuries off. Church government never can 
have a fixed and absolutely settled form, if, indeed, it can be 
always necessary at all. 

The impossibility, therefore, of fixing, once for all, a form 
of Church government which would be exclusively the legal 
form, but adapted to answer the end of government under all 
circumstances, is apparent. To fix permanently any form of 
government for the Church, would be to control the civil gov¬ 
ernment of the world; to damage, if not to ruin, Christianity, 
for lack of uniform adaptation; and to unhinge and dislodge 
the settled principles and axioms of God’s administration. 


9 


194 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 



CHAPTER VII. 

ORDINATION. 

Ordination is either the act of conferring holy orders, by 
which the person is initiated into the ministry, and thus in¬ 
vested, by the personal authority of the ordainer, with the au¬ 
thority of a minister; or, it is the public, solemn, and authorita¬ 
tive recognition and setting apart of a person as a minister, by 
the Church, by which his relation to the Church, as its min¬ 
ister, is established. 

It will not be attempted, in the following remarks, to ex¬ 
amine all the ground and all the notions which writers of very 
fair respectability for talents, learning, and piety, have occu¬ 
pied and held with regard to the rite and the nature of ordi¬ 
nation. It is not deemed important to debate the question 
whether ordination be a designation to the ministry of the 
gospel, or a designation to a particular church as pastor 
thereof, and the person ceasing to be a minister, and his min¬ 
isterial orders abating, on his ceasing to be the incumbent of 
that particular pastorate. This question has been ably and 
extensively debated; but it is presumed that the Christian 
world, for the most part, has settled down upon the doctrine 
that ordination is a designation to the ministry, without par¬ 
ticular reference to any particular Church. It will be so con¬ 
sidered in the following remarks : 

The doctrine that the act of ordination, abstractly and spe¬ 
cifically considered, confers ministerial authority—that it is 


TIIE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


195 


the investiture of the ministerial office—is the doctrine of the 
apostolic succession. 

The argument intended to be made on that particular sub¬ 
ject should not be anticipated further than a clear elucidation 
of the several other topics before us, as we pass along, seems 
to require. 

We must look, however, a few minutes at the doctrine that 
the rite or ceremony of ordination, separately and indepen¬ 
dently considered, confers the ministerial authority of a min¬ 
ister of the gospel. It is not necessary, as many persons 
seem to suppose, that the proposition just now before us in¬ 
volves the inquiry, whether bishops, as contradistinguished 
from presbyters or elders, have or have not the sole authority 
to ordain. The doctrine of transmitted ministerial authority, 
by those who espouse it, may be held to run as well in a line 
of presbyters as in a line of bishops. 

The doctrine of transmitted ministerial authority—that is, 
that ministerial authority is transmitted in the act of ordina¬ 
tion, solely, from the ordainer to the ordained, by the imposi¬ 
tion of hands, and the other ceremonies in the ordination—is 
held to be defective, from the consideration that there is not one 
word in the Scriptures which, in any way, relates to such a 
proposition, nor is the thing in itself either necessary or proba¬ 
ble. It is in its nature a dogma, and therefore requires spe¬ 
cific proof. 

It is defective, also, from the further consideration that it 
supposes authority to come down from Christ chronologically, 
from his days to our own, in some other way than by and in 
the written Scriptures. Whereas, the Bible affirms, and all 
Christendom believes, that the writing , and the things writ¬ 
ten in the word of God, constitute the only authority and the 
only rule among men on the subject of the Christian ministry. 
We are required to believe nothing, and consequently to do 
nothing, under the belief of any supposed authority or truth 


196 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


relating to religion, and which is not either written in the 
Bible, or naturally and necessarily true of itself. Any pro¬ 
position relating to religion, and which can be otherwise, and 
which is not provable by the Scriptures, is not binding on a 
Christian. Hence the doctrine of authority transmitted in 
ordination is not a Christian doctrine. 

The belief in question is defective from the further con¬ 
sideration, that it supposes the strange and unnatural idea that 
there is a principle of virtue, or an essence, or a vitality, or 
something not easily conceived of, emanating from Christ per¬ 
sonally, and descending through fallible and sometimes sinful 
human agents personally, and which flows in a stream from 
man to man tactually, from the hands of one man to the head 
of another, into his hands and thence to the head of another, 
and so on, and that this current of virtue, or essence, or vi¬ 
tality, or whatever it might be called, is the principle of min¬ 
isterial authority. 

It is defective from the further consideration, that an ordi¬ 
nation thus ceremoniously performed must be valid, that is, 
legal, and therefore binding on all parties, notwithstanding 
the direct and plain protest to the contrary of Jesus Christ, 
which is sometimes made against it. The doctrine does not, 
and in its nature cannot, discriminate between religious and 
irreligious persons—ordainers or ordained. The protests of 
Christ are plain against such religious or ecclesiastical acts, 
and all other religious or ecclesiastical acts performed by 
wicked men. Hence, in such cases, the ordination cannot be 
valid. 

And its defectiveness may be further seen from the consid¬ 
eration that it separates entirely and widely between the 
Church and the ministry. It places the latter quite above 
the former and entirely distinct from it, whereas the ministry 
is truly only a part of the Church, and is not distinct from 
and entirely independent thereof. 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 19 \ 

If authority to ordain ministers inheres in a presbyter 01 
bishop, whether they are or are not of the same order of minis¬ 
try, or in any other Church officer, as such, how did he get 
the authority? In his ordination, of course, from his or- 
dainer. And how did his ordainer get his authority ? In 
the same way, and so on, back, back to the apostles. The 
doctrine of apostolic succession is the doctrine that the power 
to ordain inheres in some Church officers as such. This doc¬ 
trine must either be adhered to or abandoned. 

Having seen then, briefly, and pretty satisfactorily it is 
hoped, what ordination is not, let us proceed to inquire what 
it is. This inquiry brings us to the second proposition above 
made, viz.: That ordination is the public, solemn, and author¬ 
itative recognition and setting apart of a person as a minis¬ 
ter, by the Church, by which his relation to the Church as 
its minister is established. 

The question of a Divine, personal, specific, and immediate 
call to the Christian ministry does not belong to the present 
argument, and will not, therefore, be introduced. The doc¬ 
trine is, however, fully recognized, and we proceed upon its 
supposed truth. 

Then human persons have no agency whatever—can by 
possibility have no agency—in the investiture of the ministerial 
office as between the supposed minister and Christ. But the 
ministerial office, in its very nature, recognizes and has to do 
with three different parties, viz.: Christ, the minister himself, 
and the Church. The Church is not a party to the call to 
the ministry: cannot be cognizant of it by any distinct visi¬ 
ble manifestations, and can only be informed by a fallible, 
erring man that such call has been made. 

Secondly. It is clearly possible that the Church may be 
misinformed as to this fact, and we all believe that this is not 
very unfrequently the case. This may result from ignorance, 


198 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


superstition, or an overheated and misguided zeal. For there 
is a zeal which is not according to knowledge. 

Now, a Christian minister, in order to he properly, validly, 
and practically a minister, must have the seal and recognition 
of both the other parties, viz.: the Master who called and 
sent him, and the Church to whom he ministers. For, sup¬ 
pose a man to be truly called of God to the sacred office: if 
the Church does not in some way, by some public and authorita¬ 
tive mode, recognize and give their assent to the call, and re¬ 
ceive the minister, he is no minister to men. And, on the 
other hand, suppose the Church to recognize a man as a min¬ 
ister, and by whatsoever public or private acts—any thing pos¬ 
sible for them to do, in order to invest him with ministerial 
functions—and the invisible movings of the Holy Ghost in 
designating the man as a minister be lacking: he is most 
surely no minister of Christ to the Church, however much or 
however little men may be mistaken in the premises. 

Hence, in the very nature of the case, in order for a man 
to be divinely and practically a minister to the Church, he 
must have the Divine call and investiture, and also the hu¬ 
man assent and investiture of the ministerial functions. 
The former may, and undoubtedly does, give him a personal 
right to be a minister; and it may and does also make it his 
duty to preach. Not absolutely his duty, however. It is his 
duty to preach only upon condition of his being able to induce 
the Church to come into the arrangement. Because, to 
preach, not only implies the vocal utterance of truth on his 
part, but a recognition of and a hearing of his preaching on 
the part of the Church. A minister alone of himself cannot 
preach. It requires the act and cooperation of both minister 
and people to make up what we call the preaching of the 
gospel. 

Here, then, lies the necessity, and the only necessity, of 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


199 


ordination. The machinery of ministering the gospel can¬ 
not, in the very nature of the case, work without it. 

Ordination, then, is the investiture of office, by the Church, 
as between the Church and the minister , but NOT as between 
the minister and Christ ; for the Church is not the vice¬ 
gerent of Christ ) neither is the existing ministry the vice- 
gerency of Christ. Human persons can act in their own 
sphere, and on their own behalf; but Jesus Christ is capable 
of attending to his own affairs, and does not make men his 
agents, except by special investment. 

In order for a person, after the Divine appointment as min¬ 
ister, to become, in any practical or real sense, a minister, it 
is necessary for the Church of human persons to entertain 
and decide the question, upon all the information they may 
gather of the supposed Divine call to the ministry of any 
person who makes such profession. That question must be 
settled by the Church, before the man can become a minister. 
The Church may err. They may decide in favor of the Di¬ 
vine call, in some particular case, where really there is none. 
Or they may decide against it contrary to the Divine will. 
In such cases, the only remark necessary to be made is, that, 
as in all other cases of error in human judgment, we must 
suffer the consequences. But this cannot in the slightest de¬ 
gree interfere with the principle that the action, first of God 
in heaven, and secondly of men on earth, are both indispen¬ 
sably necessary in order to any man’s becoming a minister of 
Jesus Christ to the Church. 

The principle is the same as that of any other ministry, or 
an ordinary agency. 

If a government send its minister or agent to another 
government to represent the interests and views of the former, 
the cooperation of all the three parties to the transaction is 
absolutely necessary before any thing can be done. The minis¬ 
ter may be duly appointed as between himself and his principal. 


200 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


But it avails nothing: it all falls to the ground, and becomes 
practically void and inert, unless such minister make it appear 
satisfactorily to the government to whom he is sent that he is 
thus legally and properly appointed. If he convince them, 
by proper seals and attestations of this fact, then another 
thing becomes necessary. They must receive him as such 
agent or ambassador. This they may or may not do. They 
may refuse to hear his mission, or to treat with the former 
government entirely. 

So, it is evident the supposed minister is not a minister to 
them , until they, on examination, first believe him to be truly 
sent, and, secondly, accept or receive him in that capacity. 

Just so of the minister of Christ to the Church. The 
action of the Church, then, in the matter, is indispensably 
necessary. The credentials of the minister must he good; 
but» that does not avail—that alone will not answer—they 
must be pronounced good by the Church. 

Now, this action of the Church constitutes the essence of 
ordination, as well as its end and seal. 

And now, the question arises, how shall the Church do this 
thing ? It is apparent to all that it ought to be done in such 
a manner as will give to the act the highest sauction of the 
Church, its broadest and most authoritative seal, as well as 
its open and full proclamation. For it must be remem¬ 
bered, the minister is not the minister of Christ to the 
Church merely, but also to the world. It is eminently 
proper, then, for the Church to make this certificate and pro¬ 
nunciation, in a way best calculated to answer the end intended. 
Then it should certify the minister in question broadly, 
authoritatively, and openly to the world, as a plenary minis¬ 
ter of the gospel of Christ. 

The act or ceremony of ordination, like that of marriage, 
or of inauguration, is for the purpose of giving notoriety, 
force, sanction, universal recognition, to the investiture of 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


201 


office, which is thus consummated and made patent before the 
world. 

The President of the United States is ordained. But it is 
not the ceremony of ordination, abstractly and specifically 
considered, that gives him the right to be president. He 
derives that right from the people and States of the Union. 
But as this is a public office, it requires a public seal made 
by the performance of some public act, which amounts to a 
national recognition and a national proclamation of the per¬ 
sonal investiture. So he is to go, on a set day, publicly 
before the people, and solemnly undertake, before the chief 
justice of the nation, the responsibility of his office; and at 
the hands of such chief justice to receive the oath of office, 
and thus be ordained or inaugurated into office. But it is not 
the oath of office received at the hands of the chief justice, 
abstractly and specifically considered, that makes him presi¬ 
dent. For if so, then the same chief justice could make any 
other man president, for he could administer to him the same 
oath. In administering the oath, which is the act of ordina¬ 
tion, the chief justice acts not on his own behalf, by preroga¬ 
tive, but he acts as the executive officer of the nation : the 
nation ordains. 

All public officers are ordained. From the President of 
the United States to the town constable, in state or in Church, 
or in private organized associations, all public officers are, in 
some way, ordained, installed, or inaugurated, as you choose 
to call it. 

How does the judge of a court get to be judge ? He is 
first appointed or elected to the office; but he may not yet 
enter upon the duties thereof, for he is not ordained. The 
legislature specifies the mode of performing this ceremony. 
It is made the executive duty of some certain officer to ordain 
him; that is, to inaugurate him; that is, to administer to him 
the oath of office, in some specified manner. 

9 * 


202 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


Hence we define ordination to be. a public, solemn, and 
authoritative recognition and setting apart of a person as a 
minister, by the Church, by which his relation to the Church, 
as its minister, is established. 

But how ought the Church to proceed, in ordaining a man 
to the ministry ? 

The Church is a public body, and, as such, can act only in 
two different ways. Legislatively and judicially it can act in 
its public aggregate capacity; but executively, it can act only 
by means of a constituted agent. All public acts are either 
legislative, judicial, or executive. The recognition of a min¬ 
ister by a Church, is or may be considered either legislative 
or judicial—we need not stop to inquire which—and, there¬ 
fore, it may be done by the Church in a body, in any one of 
several different ways in which any deliberative organization 
may decide a question. But the setting apart of the minister 
is in its nature executive. It may be called setting apart, or 
it may be called the personal investiture of the badge or seal 
of office. This cannot be done by the Church in a body, but 
requires, in the nature of the thing, the agency of an officer 
of the Church. Such agent, in this duty, acts as the execu¬ 
tive officer of the Church. In such duty he bears the same 
relation to the Church that the President of the United 
States does to the people of the Union; or that a sheriff does 
to the people of a county. He is the means or instrument 
b } 7 which the will of the Church is executed. 

Ordination, then, or the human acts necessary to make a 
man a preacher or minister, are, first, the recognition, and, 
second, the setting apart, or investment. 

The Church does both these things. The former it does 
by its public decision in its collective capacity. The latter it 
does by its officer constituted for this purpose. 

Ask Masons and Odd-Fellows, or Sons of Temperance, 
how their officers get into office. The public sense of pro- 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 203 

priety of all men looks to and requires some public, patent 
seal of investiture. 

The doctrine that a minister, acting as ordainer, performs 
the ordination of his own personal authority, independent of 
the Church, and not as its agent or executive officer, is the 
doctrine which was attempted to be refuted a few pages back. 

The Church ordains. The governor of a State does not 
receive his authority from the chief justice who administers 
to him the oath of office, and formally inducts him into the 
gubernatorial chair. He receives his authority from the State, 
or the people of the State, and the chief justice, as the minis¬ 
ter of the State, invests him formally and finally with the 
office. 

The inauguration is an official proclamation to the world 
that that man is now truly and legally inducted into that 
office. It establishes publicly the relation between the new 
governor and the State. And the governor-elect is also 
a participant in the ceremony in which he solemnly receives 
the office, and promises before the world a faithful discharge 
of its duties. The compact is now solemnly and finally estab¬ 
lished and made patent. 

And just so in matrimony. The man and the woman do 
not receive, respectively, the matrimonial authority from the 
officer who performs the ceremony,. He fixes the public 
seal and makes the contract patent, and thus proclaims and 
establishes it before the world. The contract, as between the 
man and the woman, was made before his services were 
needed. But with his services the contract becomes valid as 
between the parties themselves and the public. 

This is precisely the way, and the only way, in which 
every public investiture is made. Ordination otherwise con¬ 
sidered would be an anomaly in human affairs. 

A minister, in performing the rite of ordination upon 
another person, does not do so because he is a bishop, or 


204 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


because be is a presbyter or elder. This point seems not to 
be well understood always, and therefore deserves particular 
notice. It is not the being an elder that authorizes him to 
ordain. It is not the being a bishop that invests him with 
authority to ordain. It is because the Church has placed 
upon him the performance of that duty. The Church ordains. 
Who performs the ceremony ? The officer whom she charges 
with the performance of that duty. If the Church desig¬ 
nate one officer as bishop, and invest him with oversight for 
a day, or a year, or a lifetime, and make it the duty of the 
bishop to ordain, then it is the duty of the bishop to ordain. 
If the Church dispenses with a general oversight, in the pas¬ 
toral duties of the ministry, and only invests superior officers 
with the functions of presidency temporarily, or for short 
periods, and enacts that such president shall ordain, then it is 
his duty to ordain. The Church ordains. 

According to the common sense of all men of common 
sense, it is manifestly appropriate and proper that the Church 
should select, as its executive officer, in performing so solemn 
and important and interesting a duty as that of ordination, 
its highest officer. But he performs this duty by the same 
authority as he performs any other ecclesiastical duty. He 
presides in an assembly of ministers, or of laymen, or both, 
because the Church places that duty upon him, and not by 
prerogative. He supervises here, sends a missionary there, 
or goes a missionary himself, gives appointments to preachers 
as special pastors, and does this or that, not by prerogative, 
not by any thing independently inherent in him, but because 
the Church so directs. He is still only a minister. 

Ordination is one of these duties. No man ordains by 
personal inherent prerogative. He ordains because the Church 
has connected that duty with the office he holds. Ordination, 
either to the episcopate or the presbyterate, does not con¬ 
vey a personal right to ordain. It inducts a minister into an 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


205 


office to which ordination usually pertains; and so he is 
invested with the necessary authority, and may perform the 
service whenever the Church requires it at his hands. 

This view of ordination accords with the Methodist discip¬ 
line, as well as with the character and philosophy of the 
thing. The Methodist Church prescribes—not the bishops or 
ministry exclusively—but the Church prescribes that bishops 
shall ordinarily ordain ministers; but, in certain contingencies, 
any other elders may perform the duty. Presbyterian, Epis¬ 
copalian, and Baptist, Churches, hold in substance the same 
doctrine. 

This view of the question also gets entirely rid of the need¬ 
less argument as to what officers in a Church, whether pres¬ 
byters or bishops, have the right to ordain. The Church 
ordains. 


206 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

ORDINATION BY MR. WESLEY. 

Not a little dispute, first and last, has Ibeen had with regard 
to the ordination to the episcopacy of Hr. Coke, by Mr. John 
Wesley, and those who assisted him. And the arguments 
have been strangely drawn into discussions respecting the 
validity or invalidity of the Methodist Churches in America. 

It seems that in 1784, Mr. Wesley, with others, ministers 
in Bristol, ordained Hr. Thomas Coke, a superintendent, or 
bishop—the words both mean the same thing—and that after¬ 
wards Hr. Coke came and exercised episcopal functions in 
America, in connection with Wesleyan Methodists here. 

In looking into this matter, it should in the first place be 
remarked, that whatever of right or wrong, legality or ille¬ 
gality, prudence or imprudence, expediency or inexpediency, 
, may attach to this transaction, perta.ns to the persons who 
participated in it, or if they are d d, to their posthumous 
character. 

The legality of that ordination, as between Mr. Wesley and 
his Church, is worse than an idle question now, for Mr. Wes¬ 
ley is dead. And as to its legality, so far as Christ, the Head 
of the Church, is concerned, there can be no debatable ques¬ 
tion, for it is a historic fact, already past, that it did serve 
the purpose intended. The blessings of God, with the out- 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 207 

pourings of his grace, did accompany it in a most extraor¬ 
dinary manner. 

But still, let the transaction be viewed in any light, or from 
any point of observation, any right or wrong connected with 
it attaches to the character of John Wesley, Thomas Coke, 
and the other ministers who performed it or participated in it. 
They acted morally right or morally wrong, wisely or unwisely. 
There the matter begins and there it ends. No man or 
body of men living now has, or can have, any interest in that 
transaction beyond the interest they may feel in the posthu¬ 
mous reputation of these good and great men. 

Mr. Wesley is dead, and has bequeathed no personal grace 
or merit to any survivors, either to individuals or Churches. 

The Methodist Church is not a true Church because of any 
thing Mr. Wesley ever did, or said, or taught, or thought. 
It is a true Church, if a true Church at all, because, and only 
because of its present character. If the thing at present— 
the Church—‘■the whole or any integral portion of it, conforms 
to the Scripture model of a Church, then it is a true Church; 
and if not, then it is not. Mr. Wesley is not now even a 
member of it; and if he were, he would not be the Church, 
but only a member of it. Inquiries, therefore, respecting 
him, and inquiries respecting the Methodist Church, or any 
other Church, are totally different and distinct things. 

But still, for another purpose, we propose to say a few 
words respecting this ordination. 

The principles laid down in the foregoing chapter are, that 
ordination, or the consummation of the ministerial functions, 
as between the minister and the Church, consists in the action 
of the Church; first, in an expression of the Church’s belief 
that the person is truly called to preach; and secondly, in the 
act of setting him apart by the imposition of the hands of an 
officer designated for that purpose. 

Now, it is not pretended that that portion of the Methodist 


208 THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 

Church, which then existed in America, acted officially in this 
matter, so far as regards Dr. Coke, before his ordination. Nor 
was this absolutely necessary, for two reasons : 

First. The orders conferred upon Dr. Coke were not ab¬ 
solutely restricted to this portion of that particular Church; 
nor to any portion of any particular Church. He was or¬ 
dained a superintendent, “ to preside over the flock of 
Christand was then eligible to employment by, or con¬ 
nection with, any Church, in that or any other ministerial 
capacity. The great need for such a minister in the Metho¬ 
dist Church in America, furnished the occasion for the ordi¬ 
nation ; and the whole Church, both in England and here, 
looked to Mr. Wesley, because of his providential relationship 
to the Church, to supply this desideratum. 

Secondly. The doctrine in the foregoing chapter, respect¬ 
ing the two-fold action of the Church in making a minister, 
or a bishop, for it will apply equally to both, is not to be con¬ 
sidered so stringent that the order of ‘proceeding may not in 
any possible case be varied. The regular, ordinary mode is 
for the Church to act first in a body in receiving a minister, or 
giving its consent or acquiescence in the conferring of the 
proposed orders, and then for the ceremony of ordination to 
take place. But in the varied course and currents of things 
among men, this order of proceeding may be in a single in¬ 
stance impracticable. Many things are legally done, but irregu¬ 
larly done; that is, done out of the regular and accustomed 
manner. Circumstances might by possibility make it neces¬ 
sary for the imposition of hands to precede the action of the 
Church. And if this should happen, it does by no means 
disturb the principle at all. A subsequent recognition of the 
act of an agent, by his principal, makes the act as valid as 
though it had been previously directed to be done. 

Supposing then that this ordination had been performed in 
the Methodist Church in the United States, as distinct from 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 209 

that in England, which, however, was not the case, the ques¬ 
tion of its legality would depend upon the question whether 
the Church did or did not subsequently ratify the act. And 
even this question never was important to any other persons 
than to Mr. Wesley and Dr. Coke. If the Church did ratify 
the act, very well; then there was harmony between the 
Church and these ministers. But if the Church repudiated 
the act, and would not receive Dr. Coke as a minister, and 
recognize his ordination by Mr. Wesley, and his episcopal 
acts, then there was disagreement between the Church and 
those ministers, and either the one party or the other might 
possibly be considered blameworthy. This is the beginning, 
and the boundaries, and the end of that question. 

But suppose—if we may be allowed to suppose in the face 
of notorious recent historic facts—suppose the ordination of 
Dr. Coke to have been invalid. What matters that to exist¬ 
ing Churches and living Christians now ? Are Churches no 
Churches, and Christians no Christians, because of some error, 
intentional or unintentional, committed in some ordination of 
a minister a hundred or a thousand years ago ? It is my 
intention, by the blessing of God, to look into the doctrine of 
apostolic succession, after a while. 

But that the Methodist Episcopal Church did affirm, sanc¬ 
tion, and cooperate with Mr. Wesley in this ordination of Dr. 
Coke, is a fact as plainly enstamped upon the history of the 
country as any other historic fact. That it was a popular 
measure among American Methodists, greatly desired at the 
time, and was then and has ever since been sanctioned by 
the whole Church, and owned and recognized everywhere, is 
notorious. And that it was officially and legally affirmed and 
owned by the Church, is matter of undisputed record fact. 

The General Conference of 1782 has the following entry: 

“ Question 19. Do the brethren in Conference unanimously 
choose brother Asbury to act according to Mr. Wesley’s orig- 


210 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


inal appointment, and preside over tlie American Conferences 
and the whole work ? 

“Answer: They do.” 

This, and several other similar acts of the American Church, 
recorded subsequently, respecting the general superintendency 
of Mr. Wesley over it, fully recognizes episcopal authority iu 
him. He was, to all intents and purposes, a bishop to the 
American Church. 

It may be said that he lacked ordination. But ordination, 
technically considered as the laying on of hands, is not essen¬ 
tial to the exercise of episcopal functions. Ordination to the 
episcopacy does not place a man in a higher order in the min¬ 
istry : it only sets him apart, or rather gives the churches 
proclamation that he is set apart, as a superintendent of 
ministers and churches. 

The essential prerequisites of a minister—that is, the things 
without which no man can be a mimister—are these two: 
First, a call from Cod; and, secondly, a full and patent acqui¬ 
escence on the part of the Church that such call is real and 
true, and a public receiving of the minister as a minister of 
Christ. This public receiving, or induction into office, should 
be done by what we call ordination • but it is possible that in 
some cases this may be impracticable. National turmoil and 
disruption, the exigences of war, or pestilence, or famine, or 
shipwreck, may possibly render it impracticable. There is, 
perhaps, not much if any greater necessity for the formal or¬ 
dination of a minister of the gospel than for the inauguration 
of a king, a president, a judge, or other high public functionary. 
And there is evidently, in the very nature of the case—if we 
look at the nature and end of ordination—less necessity for it 
in the case of a bishop than of an ordinary minister of the 
gospel. 

The question, in the case of Mr. Wesley, is, then, whether 
the circumstances in which he was placed, the disruption in 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 211 

the government which had just then taken place, the anom¬ 
alous condition of the Church here, his well-understood rela¬ 
tion to it, and the pressing necessity for the ordinances here 
in the American Church, justified him in ordaining Dr. Coke, 
he himself being without ordination to the episcopacy, but 
being really, virtually, a bishop? No minister on earth was 
ever more fully recognized by his whole Church—or, with few 
exceptions, by a larger Church—as a bishop, than was John 
Wesley. But at the same time we say he was virtually a 
bishop, we say he was ecclesiastically—as all bishops are—an 
elder. 

And that the Church in America did fully sanction the or¬ 
dination of Dr. Coke to the episcopacy, and receive him as 
such, is most fully, legally, and officially attested by every Con¬ 
ference of that day. So that the ordination of Dr. Coke has 
precisely the same official attestation as any ordination to the 
same office since. 

Many persons seem to entertain erroneous ideas with regard 
to ordination—what it is. This was attempted to be ex¬ 
plained in the foregoing chapter. The custom descended 
from the Jewish into the Christian Church, and, as has been 
explained, finds its reason and sanction in the nature of the 
case, and in universal practice. 

u Their custom of ordination was evidently taken up by the 
Christians from a correspondency to the synagogue. That un¬ 
der the synagogue was done by laying on of hands. A two¬ 
fold use I find of this symbolical rite beside the solemn de¬ 
signation of the person on whom the hands are laid. The 
first is to denote the delivery of the person or thing thus laid 
hands upon, for the right, use, and peculiar service of God. 
The second end of laying on of hands was, the solemn invo¬ 
cation of the Divine presence and assistance to be upon and 
with the person upon whom the hands were thus laid. Thence 
in all solemn prayers wherein any person was particularly de- 


212 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


signed, they made use of the custom of imposition of hands. 
From which custom Augustin speaks: ‘‘What is imposition 
of hands but prayers over a man V ” —Stillingfleet’s Irenicum , 
p. 264. 

Ordination, then, following the ancient custom, is the set¬ 
ting apart of a particular man to a particular work. It is a 
solemn transaction in regard to a very solemn and sacred work. 
The idea of a solemn setting apart is derived from the im¬ 
memorial usage of the Church. It carries about it, perhaps, 
no intrinsic or philosophic necessity, but it is invested with 
the most exalted veneration, the highest antiquity, and the 
most revered customs. The ceremony of designating a person 
for a particular work was done in this way. The imposition 
of hands, however, was not confined to this ceremony, but 
was used in the invocation of blessings, the conferring of 
miraculous gifts, etc. 

Although the imposition of hands could hardly be consid¬ 
ered essential in the ceremony of ordination, yet the antiquity 
of the usage, the solemnity naturally attending it, as well as 
the sacred reminiscences it calls up, and by which it im¬ 
presses the candidate as well as the public with a sense of the 
real and true importance of the ceremony, seem to sanction the 
usage and call for its continuance. 

Let us now briefly, in closing this chapter, for it is not in¬ 
appropriate, inquire into the condition respectively of unor- 
dained and of uncalled ministers of the gospel, and their 
relation to the Church. 

There is a sense in which it may be said that any man has 
a right to preach. A man has a right, on meeting his fellow 
by the way, to warn and caution and instruct him with re¬ 
gard to religion and moral accountability. And if he may 
thus advise and exhort one, he may two, or twenty, or a 
hundred. It is, moreover, the duty of all men to incul¬ 
cate and spread abroad the principles and truths of the 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


213 


gospel, as far and as wide as opportunity and ability may 
authorize. 

But all this while it is true that Jesus Christ did plainly 
express his will that there should be in the world an order of 
ministers of his word, whose peculiar duty it should be to 
devote themselves to this special work. So that it cannot for 
a moment be denied that there is somewhere a distinction be¬ 
tween a minister and a layman of the Church. 

There are many things which a minister may do in the offi¬ 
cial discharge of his duty as pastor of a church, which a lay¬ 
man may also lawfully do, nay, which are his duty to do. 
And there are circumstances, too, which much more than jus¬ 
tify a layman in performing services in the Church which 
really belong to the ministry. In truth, most of the duties of 
the Church and of religion seem to be common to the minis¬ 
try and the laity. Still, the Saviour u ordained twelve.” That 
the ministry of the word, as contradistinguished from the 
laity, is a fundamental and primary institution of the gospel, 
is beyond all question. 

But it may be asked, Can a man be a minister, as contra¬ 
distinguished from a layman, without ordination? This is 
nearly the same as to inquire, what particular actions consti¬ 
tute ordination. For it is apparent, in the nature of things, 
that a man cannot be a minister, distinct from a layman, with¬ 
out something by which he is thus distinguished. This mark 
of distinction must be personal; and as we have no hereditary 
priesthood, as in the Jewish Church, it must be by some act 
in the nature of a compact between the supposed minister and 
the Church, in which the former undertakes to be a minis¬ 
ter, and the latter agrees to recognize and receive him in that 
capacity. 

This compact, or agreement, or undertaking, ought to be— 
if the Church and the minister be supposed to be Christians 
—entered into in the most solemn, authoritative, and prayerful 


214 


TIIE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


manner, with the design, in good faith, to make a gospel min¬ 
ister. And if so, it must include two things, to say the least 
of it. First, it must be a solemn and prayerful and public 
expression of belief on the part of the Church, that such 
man is truly called of God to preach, and a willingness to re¬ 
cognize him as a minister of Christ. Secondly, there must be 
in some way, and by some solemn actions, a designation or 
dedication, or setting apart, of that man to the ministry. 

Nothing short of this, at least, can distinguish a man from 
the laity, as a minister. Now, what these particular actions 
must be, is not expressly laid down in the Scriptures. The 
ceremony that is called ordination comes as near the practice 
of the apostolic Christians as we can well get; and to inquire 
how much of solemnity, of order, and of becoming and 
Christian-like ceremony, may be dispensed with, and the thing 
still be entitled to the name of ordination, or to something 
else that will answer in the place of, or as well as, ordination, 
is an inquiry that can, at least, lead to no profit. For that 
would be as useless as to inquire how little of ministerial duty 
a minister could perform, and still continue to be a minister. 

There is no precise line. Neither is there any precise line 
between these and those and the other actions, which separates 
precisely, in all cases, between that which does and that which 
does not constitute ordination. The elements of ordination, as 
has been explained, consist not in external actions, words, or 
manipulations, but in the spiritual and religious thing. This 
is recognition on the part of the Church, separation, and dedi¬ 
cation ; the Divine call to preach being the foundation of the 
whole. 

It follows, therefore, that there can be no ministry without 
ordination—not that the particular ceremonies which are 
usually called ordination are necessary, absolutely, but the 
spirit and essence of the thing must be present. 

Without this, in the ordinary civilities of life, and the 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


215 


courtesies of the day, a man may be called a minister, and a 
company of persons may hire him to deliver sermons to them 
on the Sabbath, but still he is a layman. He may, neverthe¬ 
less, do some good in these public services—more good, per¬ 
haps, than any other person in the neighborhood. Then he 
is a useful man; but he is still a layman. 

As to the condition of a minister who is not called of God 
to preach, very few words need be said. To be a minister, is 
to be the minister, or servant, for this special work, of Jesus 
Christ. And to say that a man can be a minister of Jesus 
Christ in this special department of Divine servitude—viz., 
preaching the gospel—and not be specially and personally 
designated by Jesus Christ for the work, is to express a plain, 
simple, logical contradiction. For, to be a servant of a mas¬ 
ter, implies that the master send the servant, and direct the 
service. 

An association of persons may engage one of their fellows 
to lecture on religion, or on any other subject; to read to 
them, from the Bible, or any other book; and all this may be 
for their supposed or real instruction or amusement: it may 
advance their morals and better the religious condition of 
some—for men may, and ought to, improve their moral and 
religious condition by personal intercourse and mutual in¬ 
struction in duty—but all this does not make a Christian 
minister: though, perhaps, a man of a hundred times more 
value, he is no more a minister of the gospel of Christ than 
is a stage-player. 


216 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


CHAPTER IX. 

THE DEACONRY. 

Previous occasions in this work Have led to allusions and 
explanations with regard to the office of deacon, so that it 
will not be found necessary to lengthen remarks in this sepa¬ 
rate chapter. 

The office does not appear to be a primary institution of 
Christianity, but it grew out of the particular exigences of the 
case, after the ministry proper had been for some time in 
regular and successful operation. 

When the number of the disciples was multiplied —Acts 
vi. 1—there were found to be more duties pressing upon the 
hands of the ministers than they could discharge. Already 
there were complaints in portions of the Church with regard 
to the distribution of the Church charities. The apostles saw 
that these complaints were not unjustly suggested, but at the 
same time it was not in their power to afford complete redress. 
Moreover, the difficulty was likely to grow worse, rather than 
better. They called the Church together, submitted the 
matter, and recommended that persons should be appointed to 
assist them in these duties. 

They did not recommend an enlargement of the ministry, 
in an unqualified sense, but that persons should be selected— 
holy, zealous, good men—whom they might appoint over this 
business. The Church assented; and the Church—not the 
apostles—selected seven men, and the apostles solemnly 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


217 


ordained them by the laying on of hands. They were ordained, 
however, not to the ministry, properly, but to this business — 
viz., the assisting of the apostles in those inferior duties which 
they had not the time to discharge personally. One object and 
result of this movement was, that the apostles might give them¬ 
selves continually to the ministry of the word and prayer. 

And it ought to be noticed that at this time, which was 
most probably in the first year of the ministry of the apostles, 
there were, most likely, no other ministers than the twelve 
apostles. When the first ordinations to the ministry took 
place we are not informed. The second verse of the sixth 
chapter of Acts very clearly leads to the idea that this was 
the first instance of ordination in the Church. 

St. Paul, in 1 Tim. iii. 8, etc., clearly recognizes the dea- 
conry as an institution, though not a primary and permanent 
institution, of Christianity. That the first deacons, or some 
of them, at least, assisted the apostles in preaching, also, as 
well as in other duties, is very clear. Stephen seems to have 
been a preacher. It is evident that deacons have been 
regarded, in all subsequent ages of the Church, both theoreti¬ 
cally and practically, as preachers. 

What is meant by a deacon not being properly a part of the 
ministry, is this. When we inquire into the proper and 
essential functions of the ministry, what do we find ? We 
find that the minister is essentially and properly the pastor. 
The pastor is the minister—the minister is the pastor. Of 
course, the pastor is the preacher, but a preacher is not ne¬ 
cessarily either a pastor or minister. Noah was a preacher; 
but we do not learn that he was pastor or minister to the ante¬ 
diluvian world. Philip preached to the Ethiopian eunuch; 
but he could not be said to be his pastor or minister. Peter 
preached to Cornelius and his family; but he could not be 
regarded as their pastor, or in any regular or legal sense their 
minister. His preaching was incidental. Paul and Silas 
10 


218 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


preached to the Philippian jailer. In fact, it is notorious, and 
well understood in all Churches, that the preacher is not ne¬ 
cessarily, for that reason, a pastor. Preaching is, unquestion¬ 
ably, a necessary function of the ministry, but is not the 
only necessary function of the ministry. The proper and 
necessary functions of the Christian ministry are preaching 
and pastorate. And as a man must be a preacher in order to 
be a pastor, it may just as well be said that the pastorate in¬ 
cludes the entire functions of a ministry. 

The proper functions of the deaconry are preaching, and 
the performance of other subordinate duties of the ministry, 
as the assistant, or helper, or attendant of the regular pastor or 
minister. All that is attempted to be said is, that of himself, 
independently, he cannot be said to be fully a minister. He 
has not yet attained fully to the ministry, because he is not 
regularly, in virtue of his office, a pastor. 

A man may be officially qualified to assist another in the 
performance of duties which he may not be qualified to per¬ 
form himself. 

Surely it cannot be maintained that u the office of a deacon 
was of a secular character ” that his duties were u distinct 
from preaching as has oftentimes been attempted. Those 
who have run into this error have done so from not carefully 
discriminating between preaching and ministering the gospel. 

The duties to which the seven deacons were immediately 
introduced, were evidently deemed by the apostles inappro¬ 
priate to the ordinary laity of the Church; else why the 
necessity of any specific appointment, and formal and solemn 
setting apart ? They were duties which specifically pertained 
to the ministerial—nay, if any one pleases, to the apostolic 
office. When the apostles called the Church together to con¬ 
sider the matter, the conclusion was not, These are secular 
matters which the laity can attend to; but the conclusion 
was, Choose you out seven men. 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


219 


Moreover, it was an office in the Church, to which they 
had been accustomed all along, in the synagogue worship. 
This office in the Christian synagogue had not been formally 
filled until now. 

The qualifications required of the deacons were not merely 
such as would fit them for a proper and faithful administra¬ 
tion of food and pecuniary u ministration,” viz., honest report; 
but they were to be full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom. This 
seems to qualify them for preaching the gospel and otherwise 
assisting the apostles in their duties. 

And so, immediately, we find Stephen, full of faith and 
power, disputing with the Cyrenians, Alexandrians and Cili- 
cians, and doing great wonders and miracles among the 
people. 

We also find Philip very soon at Jerusalem, where he very 
powerfully and successfully preached Christ unto them. It 
appears very satisfactory, also, that Philip administered the 
sacrament of baptism. It is said in Acts viii. 12 : u When 
they believed Philip, preaching the things concerning the 
kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ, they were 
baptized, both men and women.” 

The difficulties between Presbyterians and Episcopalians, 
on this subject, may, it would seem, be easily reconciled, by 
considering that a designation to the preaching of the gospel 
is not, properly and fully, a designation to the ministry; for 
the ministry supposes the pastorate, which is not an adjunct 
of the deaconry. They might unquestionably, incidentally, 
in stress of circumstances, be assigned, or assign themselves 
by consent of the Church, to a subordinate pastoral care, 
under the supervision of a pastorate proper. But the pasto¬ 
rate does not regularly pertain to that office. The deacon 
may assist a minister or pastor proper in his pastoral duties, as 
well as relieve him from any other labors. 


220 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


CHAPTER X. 

THE EPISCOPATE AND TRESBYTERATE. 

The episcopacy has been, in the foregoing pages, defined 
to be an office in the ministry, the functions of which are, to 
preside over the Church in its deliberations, and to have a 
supervisory oversight of the ministry. This oversight may be 
general, as extending over the entire ecclesiastical organization 
in federate Churches; or it may be special, as restricted to a 
diocese; or it may itinerate at intervals of a year, or several 
years, or any other length of time, from one diocese or district 
to another. The bishop may be invested with the episcopal 
office for a shorter or longer period, or during his life, upon 
condition of a steady maintenance of good faith and morals. 
This condition must always attach, necessarily, to this as well 
as any other office in the Church; for it is an essential condi¬ 
tion of Church-membership. And it would be absurd to sup¬ 
pose that a man could hold an office in the Church, who could 
not be a member of the same Church. 

A presbyter may be defined to be a minister of the 
gospel. That is, perhaps, as complete a definition as could be 
or need be given. An ordained minister of the gospel is a 
presbyter. A presbyter is an ordained minister of the gospel. 

There is an ordination which a sub-minister or deacon re¬ 
ceives, according to the apostolic example; but this is not an 
ordination to the full ministry • it is an ordination to the dea- 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


221 


conry, which is but partially to the ministry. The man who, 
without any qualification or further explanation, is in the office 
of minister of the gospel, as Christ instituted the ministry, 
may be properly called a presbyter or elder. What peculiar 
duties in the Church some elders or presbyters may have 
assigned to them by the Church, is a question foreign to a 
proper definition of the office. 

Usually the elder is the pastor of a congregation. This is, 
certainly, for the most part, the more regular or usual duty 
which pertains to the presbyterate. It is by no means neces¬ 
sary, however, that he have a special pastoral charge in order 
to continue to be a presbyter or elder. There are many cir¬ 
cumstances which may give him other employment, or even 
no special employment. 

The number and condition of the inhabitants of a particu¬ 
lar town, or neighborhood, or garrison, or naval station, or the 
like, may require the employment of two or three elders, 
when it is deemed best for one of them only to have the pas¬ 
toral charge. 

It may be proper that a minister be assigned to the chap¬ 
laincy of a legislature, or to one or both of the houses of Con¬ 
gress, or of some other government; to a judicial tribunal, 
to a royal court, to a ship, or a navy, or an army, or a prison, 
or a school, or a college, or to men in any conceivable condition 
in which men may be found, when it might or might not be 
practicable for him to have a pastorate proper. 

Or the minister may be charged with the oversight, tempo¬ 
rarily or permanently, of several Churches, with such or such 
or any other limitations and restrictions, not inconsistent with 
the spirit of Christianity. A minister may be sent to look 
over, assist, and superintend missions, for a year, or a lifetime, 
or he may be, more strictly, a missionary himself. He may be 
charged with any duties, more or less important, that pertain 
to the ministry of the gospel. But he cannot be promoted 


222 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


to a higher office in the Church than minister. St. Paul 
was “an elder.” 

Properly speaking, the several offices in a Church do not 
imply promotion. There are no higher or lower offices in a 
Church, in the sense in which we apply these terms to secular 
official elevation. No official in the Church can rise higher 
than to be a servant. Minister and servant were originally 
synonymous words. In secular affairs, the wickedness of 
the world requires, in order to some tolerable degree of 
public peace and security, that some men hear rule. But, 
in the very nature of the case, no such circumstances can 
pertain to Christianity. Here all is equality. Essentially, 
necessarily, all stand upon the same platform. Is the Church 
the antitype of heaven 'l And who will bear rule in heaven ? 
What will be the elements of promotion there ? 

But all this must harmonize with the idea of government, 
which appears almost, in a sense, to contradict it. It is fre¬ 
quently difficult, from the feebleness of language, to find 
words which will exactly copy the idea we wish to express. 
The maintenance of good order is not inconsistent with 
parity. Nor does equality prohibit the use of the best talent, 
judgment, discretion, and forecast of the wisest men, in the 
maintenance of good order, or in the pursuit, by the whole, 
of the safest and wisest course. 

A government in parity is where the whole, officers and 
all, stand primarily and naturally on an equality; and where 
the functions of control come from the common mass, and 
lodge, by common consent, in certain persons. A govern¬ 
ment of imparity is where the functions of control, or some 
of them, reside in promoted officials, or in officers, as distinct 
from the masses. The term parity cannot be used as descrip¬ 
tive of government, so as to convey distinct ideas, without 
considerable explanation; for it must be used with more or 
less of modification. 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


223 


It has been, in times past, debated whether the descriptive 
terms, 11 bishop” “presbyter” u elder•” as used in the Scrip¬ 
tures, defined distinct and several offices, or were common 
names applied to the same office. But this question has 
long since ceased to exist among all men of even very mode¬ 
rate reading. It is now settled, on all hands, that these 
words, as thus used, are common, convertible, and synonymous, 
or nearly so. The distinction, as assented to by all theolo¬ 
gians, where it was observed at all, referred only to some 
slight and unimportant circumstances, as the age of the per¬ 
son, or his having, or not having, at the time, a pakicular 
pastoral charge. That they did not denote any distinction in 
what is called order of ministry, is now the settled opinion; 
and therefore it need not be proved or argued. 

But it is held that, nevertheless, although the several 
orders of ministry were not distinguished by these names , yet 
they were distinguished by the duties which did, in fact, in 
practice, pertain to these and those several ministers—that 
it does not matter hoio the several orders of ministry were 
distinguished in the apostolic economy, so that they were 
really and truly distinguished, into grades of order, in some 
visible and palpable mode. 

This is a fair logical proposition, and must be fairly and 
logically met. It is, however, in the nature of the case, an 
mdependent affirmation, aud therefore requires specific proof 
to be presented to those who hold to the doctrine of primary 
parity in the ministry, and that apparent imparity is only 
incidental, and grows out of the nature of the case and the 
preservation of good order. 

The proof we are furnished with, and the only proof 
attempted, is in substance as follows. The substance only 
need be presented, for there is no disagreement about the details. 

1. We are told that the apostles acted as general super¬ 
visors of the Churches in their day. 


224 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


4 i2. Yv r e arc told that other ministers, under their direction, 
as Timothy and Titus, were sent by the apostles to exercise 
supervision over other Churches; and consequently they were 
bishops. 

3. It is argued that other instances of supervision by min¬ 
isters, in apostolic days, over Churches and ministers, is dis¬ 
cernible in the ecclesiastical histories of those times. 

To the first of these three propositions it is replied, that 
the fact is assented to; but it does not prove that the Church, 
in all future time, must be episcopal, or that it was then 
episcopal, in the sense of prelacy; for the reason, that this 
supervision could not , in the very nature of the case, have 
been avoided, no matter what sort of Church government 
they intended to establish, or whether they intended to 
establish any. 

To the second it is replied: 1. The mere fact of super¬ 
visory control and assistance being afforded to the neighboring 
Churches, does by no means establish episcopacy as a Divinely 
instituted form of government; for this supervision is more 
or less the case in all Churches—in all forms of government. 
2. If Timothy and Titus acted under the special direction 
of the apostle, as the supervisors of the Churches at Ephesus 
and Crete, then they could not have been bishops, unless 
there be two orders of bishops. It is not pretended that they 
supervised the Churches as prelates acting on their own 
behalf, in virtue of the office they held; but they were sent 
by other bishops, and acted under their special directions and 
authority. This proves too much. It establishes two dis¬ 
tinct orders of bishops, with distinct superior and inferior 
powers. Paul was the prime bishop, and issues his mandatory 
authority at will and discretion to Timothy and Titus, the 
second order of bishops. They, in obedience to the com¬ 
mands of their superior in office, proceed to execute his will, 
and go and discharge episcopal duties over the Churches in 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


225 


Ephesus and Crete, as the bishops of those Churches. This 
proves vastly too much, and destroys the doctrine as perfectly 
as an opponent could have desired to do it. 

To the third argument it is answered, that the fact set 
forth may be, and quite likely is, true. It would be indeed 
very strange if it were not. It does not, however, establish 
Divine-right episcopacy any more than the like conduct in all 
portions of the Church does the same thing now. All that is 
contended for by these advocates of episcopacy is notoriously 
to be found in all well-regulated and efficient Churches on 
earth. It could scarcely be avoided when all are trying to 
push forward the power of the truth as far as possible. 

Iieally it does appear that these three brief observations are 
a complete and successful refutation of the long, long, volume- 
full arguments made by prelatists, and built upon these three 
great pillars of prelacy. 

Few ecclesiastical questions have occasioned more debate 
than that of the true scriptural relation between bishop and 
presbyter. This would seem strange too, since we have just 
remarked that it is conceded on all hands that the terms 
bishop and presbyter are the same, so far as order or office are 
concerned : that they are frequently in the Scriptures used in 
relation to the same persons at the same time. 

It ought to be remarked, however, that this concession on 
the part of prelatical writers has not been fully made until 
within the last few years. The concession, however, though 
now fully made by all respectable writers, does by no means 
abate the controversy ) for, as above remarked, it is contended 
that the distinction existed, though the names were the same. 

It is possible, however, that more importance than is abso¬ 
lutely necessary has been sometimes attached to this specific 
question. It is very clear that if the doctrine of imparity, or 
three orders, could be established, according to the undertak¬ 
ings of prelatists, it avails not a whit in favor of prelacy. The 
10 * 


22G 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


only thing that is attempted to be proved on this point is the 
alleged fact that this was the form and practice of the 
Churches in the days of the apostles and early Christians. 
And they conclude that, therefore , it ought to be the form in 
all Churches. 

But this conclusion does by no means follow, for the follow¬ 
ing reasons: 

1. Suppose prelacy did exist in the apostolic Churches: 
it does not necessarily follow that it must always exist. 
There may have been abundant and good reasons for its adop¬ 
tion there at that time; but that does not prove that those 
reasons must always continue. Many of the most important 
circumstances that surrounded the Church then have long 
since ceased. And if the reason upon which the thing is 
founded ceases, may not the thing itself abate ? To prove, 
therefore, that episcopacy, or prelacy, or three orders, existed 
in the early Church, of itself proves nothing conclusive, 
most manifestly. 

2. Prelacy may have been established as the proper form 
of Church government by the apostles; and, supposing—if 
we may suppose a moral impossibility—that it is best adapted 
to the Church, as the most available form of government 
uuder all possible circumstances, still, it does not necessarily 
follow that the Church cannot exist without it. The most 
that could be claimed from this position would be, that pre¬ 
lacy is the best form of government. Churches without it 
may, however, exist, in a defective or disadvantageous form, 
in some other way. This, it is well known, was the doctrine 
of many of the early leading Church of England divines. 
Among these may be named Bishop Hall, Bishop Downham, 
Bishop Bancroft, Bishop Andrews, Archbishop Usher, Bishop 
Eorbes, Archbishop Wake, Bishop Iloadley, the very learned 
Chillingworth, Archbishops Cranmer, Grindall, Whitgift, 
Leighton, and Philips; Bishops Jewell, Bcynolds, Burnet, 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 227 

and Croft; Doctors Whitaker, Stillingfleet, and others. They 
were all staunch Episcopalians, and stoutly maintained that 
episcopacy was the proper form of government, necessary to 
the perfection, but not to the being of a Church. The want 
of episcopacy did not destroy the Church, but rendered it 
less efficient: its absence was inexpedient. So that it avails 
nothing for the doctrine of Divine-right prelacy, to show that 
episcopacy was established by the apostles, unless they could 
prove much more to put with it. 

3. And suppose we advance a step farther, and admit that 
episcopacy was established by the apostles, as the only valid 
or admitted form of Church government. Neither does this 
avail, in the slightest degree, for the doctrine of Divine-right 
prelacy, unless much more could be proved. If this were 
the true doctrine, then it is admitted there can be no 
Christianity out of the regular rule of bishops. To turn 
away from the bishops is to turn away from Christ. To turn 
away from a Church of bishops is to turn away from Christi¬ 
anity—is to turn away from religion—is to turn away from 
salvation—is to turn away from future hope. 

All this is acknowledged. Then if, under any circum¬ 
stances, a presbyter were to repudiate the rule and govern¬ 
ment of the regular bishops of the Church, and go away from 
them and set up a society, and call himself and his followers 
Christians, and preach and observe the formalities of worship, 
it is rebellion against the Church, it is schism, it is heresy: 
they are not a Church : they are not Christians; for Christi¬ 
anity out of Christ, and in repudiation of his laws, cannot be 
maintained. 

But is this true ? Is it true that Luther was a schismatic ? 
that he went out of, and not into, the Church ? Is it true 
that Protestantism is heresy? Is it true that there is no 
Church, no Christianity, no gospel, no religion, no hope, out 
of Borne ? Let those contend for it who may. 


228 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


Is not, then, a supersedeas the best plea to file in answer 
to the argument of Divine-right episcopacy, as drawn from 
the claim of three orders in the ministry ? 

And have not the writers on the opposite side run some¬ 
times into error, when, in repudiating episcopacy, as an order 
of ministry by Divine right, and in supporting what they call 
parity in the ministry, they claim Divine right for the order 
of presbyters, or for presbyters and deacons ? 

If it be affirmed that bishop, elder, and presbyter be the 
same order and the same office, then those who do so must be 
consistent, and not speak of elders and presbyters as contra¬ 
distinguished from bishops in any way. If it be held that 
presbyters, as such, have a Divine right to ordain, or that, as 
distinguished from bishops, they have any rights, or any 
existence, then we cannot at the same time hold that there is 
no distinction between presbyter and bishop; for that would 
be a contradiction. 

And again : suppose we affirm, in any shape or form, with 
or without any qualifications, that the right to ordain , by 
Divine law, pertains to any Church officer—-that is, to any 
particular officer in the Church: do we not thereby affirm 
that, to some extent at least, a form of government for the 
Church was Divinely established? Most assuredly we do 5 
and our opponents have a right to require us to be consistent. 

If any particular duty—ordination, for instance—ivas Di¬ 
vinely assigned, as a permanent regulation, to some particular 
Church officer, in contradistinction to its being performed by 
any other officer, then to that extent a form of government is 
established. For forms of government consist in the assign¬ 
ment of certain duties to certain officers, in contradistinction 
to their being assigned to some other officers, or in some other 
way. 

In answer to this, it may be said, that if the duty of 
ordination be not assigned at all, to anybody, then it may be 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


229 


performed, if performed at all, by anybody, laymen, women, 
or children. 

To this it is replied, that the teachings of Christ respecting 
the Church consist of two things : 

1. He taught that there must be a ministry distinct from 
the laity. The minister is the pastor: the duties of the min¬ 
ister are the duties of the pastor. 

2. He taught that the Church must be governed. It must 
not only be governed, but it must be so governed as, in the 
judgment of those immediately concerned, its government 
will be most conducive to the strength and influence of the 
Church in forwarding the great designs of the gospel, and in 
keeping and promoting harmony and good order. 

Now, when Christians can be made to believe that it is best 
for the Church, best for religion, that laymen or women shall 
ordain, and the regular pastors of the Church stand and look 
on, then it will be time enough to entertain this proposition. 
But, in the nature of the case, this can never be. 

The ministry was designed to be permanent; but this 
does not say whether the presbyter shall or shall not per¬ 
form this or that particular duty in the ministry, or what 
shall be the peculiar duties of bishop, or whether these dis¬ 
tinctions in the ministry shall or shall not exist. The minis¬ 
try is the pastorate of the Church. The Church consists in 
its body of people, and its pastorate. Ordination has been 
explained in its appropriate chapter. 

The ministry was ordained by Christ to be permanent; but 
whether these or those duties pertaining to the ministry 
should be assigned to an officer in the ministry who should be 
called bishop, and other and other duties be discharged by a 
minister to be called presbyter, and whether still other duties 
should or should not be discharged by still other officers, all 
these, and a thousand other questions pertaining to the regu¬ 
lation of the Church, were left to the discretion of pious men, 


230 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


to be arranged from time to time as circumstances might 
require. 

Surely different offices may be created in a common minis¬ 
try. Surely different duties of ministry may be assigned to 
different ministers. And surely convenience will soon attach 
different names to these different classes of duties. An office 
in the ministry is a different thing, surely, from an order of 
ministry. The error of many is, that they mistake the one 
for the other, or do not distinguish between them. 

If the Divine law contemplated a distinction between 
presbyters and bishops, there must have been, at least, an 
intimation of the sort in the Scriptures. But, on the con¬ 
trary, there is not one word that would lead us so to conclude. 
There is not a word in the Scriptures, leaving names out of 
the question, that intimates that, as a standing rule, one class 
of ministers was to have supervisory authority over ministers 
and Churches. The word bishop, in the New Testament, is 
used to denote oversight over the flock, the Church, but 
never to denote oversight over ministers. 

Presbyters and bishops, in the New Testament, have the 
same duties assigned them ; they have the same qualifications 
attributed to them; they have the same ordination; they 
have the same power and authority. Some of the apostles 
called themselves presbyters , but never bishops. 

In the apostolic Churches there were sometimes several 
bishops to the same Church, which shows that they could not 
be overseers of Churches, or prelates. No instance of a sec¬ 
ond ordination is found either in the Scriptures or in any 
ecclesiastical writings of early date. 

Is it not absurd to suppose that a Divine right may be 
proved by something else than Divine authority ? 

The Fathers speak sometimes of bishops as distinguished 
from elders, but the distinction is, that the former was the 
pastor of the Church, or a mere chosen president. Jerome, one 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


231 


of the most learned of these writers, who lived in the fourth 
century, explains this matter particularly. He says that 
bishop and presbyter is the same; that, to repress schism and 
irregularity in the Church, it was thought best to elect one of 
the presbyters to be bishop or overseer of the whole. And 
he is careful to explain that this is a human and not a Divine 
arrangement. Jerome’s language, as carefully translated by 
Mr. Yerger, a very learned high Church debater, quoted from 
vol. 7, page 562, of the Parisian republication of the Benedic¬ 
tine Fathers, is as follows : 

“A presbyter, therefore, is the same as a bishop; and be¬ 
fore there were, by the devil’s instigation, parties in religion, 
and it was said among the people, I am of Paul, and I of 
Apollos, and I of Cephas, the Churches were governed by a 
common council of presbyters. Afterwards, indeed, when 
each thought those he baptized were his, not Christ’s, it was 
decreed through the whole world that one chosen from the 
presbyters should be put above the rest, to whom all the care 
of the Church should belong, and the ends of schism he 
taken away. Should any one think it is not the view of the 
Scriptures, but our own, that bishop and presbyter are the 
same, and that one is the name of age, the other of office, 
let him read the words of the apostle to the Philippians,” etc. 
See u Debate,” Abbey and Yerger and Smedes, page 77. 

There is not in Wake’s translation of the Fathers, one 
word that militates against the idea that presbyter and bishop 
are the same order of ministers, but, on the contrary, the idea 
is fully sustained by several of them. 

Ordination is never in the Scriptures expressly ascribed to 
bishops by name, though it is expressly ascribed to presbyters 
by name in 1 Tim. iv. 14: u Neglect not the gift that is in 
thee which was given thee by the laying on of the hands of 
the presbytery.” It cannot, however, be said that bishops 
did not ordain, for they composed a part of the presbytery. 
They were the same persons as presbyters. 


232 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


CHAPTER XI. 

THE APOSTOLATE. 

The government of the Christian Chureh, as distinct from 
the Jewish Church, unquestionably commenced under the 
supervision of the twelve apostles—Matthias supplying the 
place of Judas. 

The only question in the philosophy of Church government, 
with regard to the apostles, which is necessary to be intro¬ 
duced here, is this : 1. What constitutes an apostle ? or what 
■ is meant by the office of apostle ? and, 2. Whether the func¬ 
tions of their office were temporary and personal to themselves, 
and, so far as they were peculiar, whether they ceased with 
their lives; or whether it was a permanent office in the 
Church, intended to be perpetual and successive, and to re¬ 
main distinct from the ordinary pastorate ? 

We must first determine what we mean by u the apostles ” 
Time need not be spent here in inquiring into the orthography 
of the word. The term originally means messenger; but the 
peculiar meaning attached to it in the Scriptures, and since, 
must be determined by the usages of these times and the 
application made of the word. 

In the first place, we see that the first disciples of the 
Saviour, twelve in number, who it seems were chosen for a 
special purpose, were called apostles. It is evident from the 
Scriptures, that the Saviour intended these twelve men to be 
his special ministers and attendants; that his plan was to in- 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


233 


struct them and endow them peculiarly with gifts and graces 
beyond the endowments of ordinary Christians ; for they were 
to be the founders of his Church and the prime propagators 
of his truths. They were called apostles because they were 
sent by Christ to convey his will to the world. 

The term apostle is also frequently applied in the Scrip¬ 
tures to other persons than the twelve. Distinguished minis¬ 
ters were called apostles. Ministers of secondary and inferior 
note were likewise called apostles. And so were persons who 
were probably not preachers at all, but who were sent by the 
ministers or Churches as messengers to other Churches. And 
lastly, the founders of particular Churches, in still later years, 
were called apostles. There were certainly, however, some 
persons who were specially and peculiarly distinguished and 
spoken of as apostles, above other apostles, and above all 
other men. And the question is, By what rule are we to dis¬ 
tinguish between apostles in this highest sense, and others to 
whom the term is applied ? 

It is certain that Christ first called or appointed twelve to 
accompany him, and be instructed by him. And in this sense 
they are, officially, at least, to be preeminently distinguished. 
But is the term, in the high sense in which we use it, to be con¬ 
fined to them ? This does not seem probable, for St. Paul 
was not one of them; and he “ was not a whit behind the 
very chiefest apostles.” 

What, then, are the essential prerequisites or qualifications 
of an apostle in this higher sense ? 

Many writers make the test of apostleship that such person 
should have seen Jesus Christ personally, after his death and 
resurrection. We see Paul on two several occasions asserting 
that he had thus seen the Lord. 1 Cor. ix. 1; xv. 8. But 
surely all who saw Christ after his resurrection were not apos¬ 
tles ; for he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once. 

It seems a matter of interest to inquire into the relation 


234 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


between Paul and Barnabas to tbe twelve; for Barnabas was 
an apostle in tbe same sense, legally, that Paul was. 

And first, we must inquire whether there was any reason 
why the Saviour fixed upon the number tivelve. Or was it 
merely because he chanced to meet with twelve suitable per¬ 
sons ? 

Mosheim tells us, u The researches of the learned have been 
employed to find out the reason of Christ fixing the number of 
apostles to twelve, and that of the disciples to seventy; and 
various conjectures have been applied to the solution of this 
question. But since it is manifest from the words of our Sa¬ 
viour himself—Matt. xix. 26 : Luke xxii. 30—that he in¬ 
tended the number of the twelve apostles as an allusion to 
that of the tribes of Israel, it can scarcely be doubted that 
he was willing to insinuate by this appointment that he was 
the supreme Lord and higli-priest of these twelve tribes into 
which the Jewish nation was divided. And as the number 
of the disciples answers evidently to that of the senators, of 
whom the council of the people, or the sanhedrim, was com¬ 
posed, There is a high degree of probability in the conjecture 
of those who think that Christ, by the choice of the seventy , 
designed to admonish the Jews that the authority of their 
sanhedrim was now at an end, and that all power, with re¬ 
spect to religious matters, was vested in him alone.”— Ecc. 
Hist., vol. i., page 56. 

That he required twelve rather than any other number, 
seems much more than probable from the choice of Matthias 
in the place of Judas. This took place before they entered 
upon their ministry. It is the only instance in which a va¬ 
cated apostolate was filled with a successor. Prom the time 
and manner of the appointment, the remarks of Peter in rela¬ 
tion thereto, etc., it appears almost, if not quite certain, that 
they considered a full and proper college of apostles to consist 
of twelve ministers. 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


235 


It seems, then, that there is a peculiar and high sense in 
which the term apostle is applied to these twelve disciples. They 
were the prime ministers of Christ. The conversion of the 
world is the fruit of their preaching, instrumentally and ex¬ 
clusively. The entire of Christendom beside rests upon 
them. All other ministers and all other Christians came in 
afterward to assist in carrying forward what they began. 
They, and none others, founded Christianity under Christ. 
He u ordained twelveone transgressed and fell, and the 
eleven filled the vacant place, and the twelve began the war¬ 
fare. 

But there is another sense in which the office of apostle is 
to be regarded; for there were persons other than these 
twelve who acted a very prominent part in the establishment 
of early Christianity, and who appear to have been quite equal 
to them in every respect in this great work; in fact, the most 
prominent and efficient of those generally called apostles, so 
far as we know, were not of the twelve. 

In undertaking to determine what are the specific functions 
of an apostle, in the high and primary sense in which that 
term is generally used, we must determine the relation sub¬ 
sisting between the twelve apostles, on the one hand, and 
Paul, Barnabas, and perhaps others, on the other hand. 

The twelve were the founders of Christianity. They com¬ 
menced preaching the gospel —the good news of salvation by 
Christ—before the Christian religion was introduced into the 
world. For the religion of Christianity, properly speaking, 
must date at the descent of the Holy Ghost. This took place, 
however, very shortly after the apostles commenced preaching. 
And the spread of Christianity followed wider and wider, never 
to cease its flow. About two years after this, we hear of Saul 
of Tarsus as a persecutor of the Christians. He is first men¬ 
tioned as aiding and abetting at the martyrdom of Stephen. 
Some time after, we hear of his miraculous conversion: then 


236 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


of liis preaching; and then he is spoken of as an apostle ; 
then he is the great apostle of the Gentiles; and his brilliant 
and glorious career which follows enters largely into the his¬ 
tory of early Christianity. He was the intimate friend and 
associate of the twelve —nay, he was their leader. Consider¬ 
ing the four Gospels as but repeated histories of the same 
events, St. Paul is the author of almost one full half of the 
New Testament Scriptures. The Christian, in looking back 
over the early history of the Church and the foundation of 
his faith and hope, sees, first, the Saviour; next, St. Paul, 
and next, Peter and his eleven original associates. Truly, 
Paul was the very chiefest of the apostles. 

"Was Barnabas an apostle ? He has generally been so con¬ 
sidered by ecclesiastical writers, but some are not willing to 
give him the preeminence which they award to Paul, or to 
the twelve. But does this inferiority, as respects Paul, attach 
to Barnabas in any legal sense ? It is very certaiu he did not 
acknowledge any superior authority in Paul, nor did the lat¬ 
ter claim any over him. Acts xv. 36-41. 

Here it is plainly seen that there was no sort of official dis¬ 
parity between them. Barnabas is expressly called an apostle 
in Acts xiv. 14. In Acts xiv. 23, the ordination of elders is 
expressly attributed to Barnabas, in conjunction with Paul. 
In Acts xv. 12, miracles are expressly attributed to him. His 
fame as a great and powerful minister of the gospel stands out 
in the inspired history of the early Church beyond that of 
most of the apostles. He introduced Paul to the twelve 
apostles at Jerusalem, and entirely changed their views with 
regard to him; for they still believed him a persecutor of the 
Church, notwithstanding he had been preaching several years. 
See Acts ix. 26, 27. It was Barnabas, also, who sought out 
Paul, or Saul, as he was then called, and brought him to An¬ 
tioch, to assist him in preaching to the Gentiles at that place. 
Paul, it will be noticed, was called Saul until the time of his 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 237 

regular ordination to the ministry, which took place at An¬ 
tioch after he had been preaching several years. 

The following observations may, it would seem, at least be 
safely made: 

1. It was manifestly necessary, humanly speaking, in the 
origin of Christianity, that some persons should be superna- 
turally endowed, as the special servants of Christ, with such 
extraordinary powers as would fit them for the peculiar work 
of setting the machinery of the Christian religion agoing. 
How could it be done otherwise ? 

2. For some reasons, of which we are not informed, the 
Saviour called and endowed for this purpose twelve men, in 
contradistinction to any other number. We may suppose that 
this number was fixed upon in reference to the Jewish polity 
—to intimate to the Jews that he was the high-priest of the 
twelve rulers or divisions of the ecclesiastical polity. That 
the number had some reference to the Jewish polity is pretty 
certain; but it seems quite certain that there was something 
in that particular number which rendered it expedient above 
any other number, from the fact that it was kept full by 
special appointment before the ministry commenced. 

3. We conclude, then, that a regular proper college of 
apostles must consist of twelve ministers in the opening of 
the Christian campaign. At least, this was the fact. 

4. In the course of the ministry of these apostles, and not 
over about three years after its commencement, a very extra¬ 
ordinary convert to Christianity was found among the disci¬ 
ples. St. Paul was a great man—great before his conversion 
—great afterwards. He occupied a large space in the public 
eye as a civilian, and as a Christian. The Church appeared to 
stand in great need of just such a man as he was. He was 
the most capable among the ministry to cope with the learned 
Greeks and Romans, and sustain the truths of the gospel in the 
face of the literati of the world. He went to preaching immedi- 


238 THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 

ately, but was not recognized by the apostles, or by the Church 
—except, possibly, a small portion of it—even as a disciple, for 
several years afterwards. At some time, not probably more 
than six or seven years after his conversion, he was endowed 
with supernatural gifts, equal, so far as we know, to those of 
the twelve apostles. And he, in a few years, assumed the 
title of apostle, and was generally connected with the apos¬ 
tles. 

5. The title of apostle, however, seems to have been at¬ 
tached to all the first ministers until the Church considerably 
increased. Barnabas has been considered an apostle—certain 
it is Paul so considered him—and, as above remarked, he ap¬ 
peared, so far as official powers were concerned, to rank equally 
with Paul or any of the apostles. In truth, for some time he 
was the leader of Paul. 

Now, several questions arise with regard to the apostolate 
of St. Paul. 

Did he officially differ from the twelve; and, if so, in what 
respects ? 

It may not be found so easy as some may imagine to point 
out the precise legal distinction. He differed from them in 
this, that he was not one of the original twelve. He came 
in afterwards in the course of the Church’s progress; though 
he was certainly equal to any of them in any kind of spiritual 
endowment. 

Was Paul superior, and in what respects, to Barnabas? 

As a man of moral force, he was not only superior to Bar¬ 
nabas, but to almost any man, whose history has come down 
to us, then living. But does the Bible in any way inform 
us that legally, officially, he was his superior ? 

Then, what is an apostle ? Where is the precise line which 
separates between a man who was and a man who was not an 
apostle ? 

After leaving the twelve, and the legal distinction between 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


239 


them and all others, there does not appear to he any precise 
legal distinction, so far as we know, so far as the apostolate is 
concerned, between the first or early ministers, before the in¬ 
crease of the Churches became considerable. 

Then, if it be said that ministers are successors of the 
apostles, we ask, of what apostles ? Of the twelve exclu¬ 
sively? or, if St. Paul is to be included, what others are to 
be included also ? 

We speak of “the apostles” —Paul being one of them — 
without reflecting that he was not one of the twelve, and 
without reflecting that if you include him, in a legal and offi¬ 
cial sense, you must also include, no man can tell who or how 
many besides. For beyond the twelve the Bible makes no 
precise point to stop at. 

Then, how does the nature of the case admit of a succes¬ 
sion to the apostolate, in any other sense than as a minister of 
the gospel ? There is nothing else to succeed to except that 
which is in its nature personal and incidental. There is no 
succession to the twelve as being the chosen and sent and 
instructed, and first planters of Christianity. St. Paul was 
not an apostle in this sense. 

And if it bo said that there is a succession to the aposto¬ 
late in the sense of their being the first bishops or governors 
of the Churches, the difficulty is that St. Paul was not one of 
these, and to iuclude him you must go out of the college of 
the twelve; and if you go out of the college of the twelve, 
you must include many others, as Barnabas, Luke, Mark, and 
others, who do not appear to have been governors of Churches. 
There is no sense in which supervisorship of Churches can be 
said to be a distinct apostolic function. It was a function of 
all the twelve, and of St. Paul besides; but was it not a func¬ 
tion of other apostles outside of the twelve ? 

There is a sense in which it might be said that men suc¬ 
ceed to the duties of these thirteen men—the twelve original 


240 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


apostles and St. Paul. But this cannot be said to be a suc¬ 
cession to apostolic functions; for it is neither confined to the 
twelve, nor does it include all other apostles outside of the 
twelve. There is no strictly legal and official sense in which 
St. Paul and none others, outside of the twelve, is to be in¬ 
cluded in the apostolic college. In any strictly legal or offi¬ 
cial sense in which there were thirteen apostles, there may 
have been fourteen, or fifteen, or perhaps twenty. 

Thus it is seen that though it could be established that the 
functions of the apostles could in their nature descend to 
other ministers, nothing is gained by it to the high-Church- 
man for the lack of some distinctive peculiar apostolic endow¬ 
ments which were confined to the original twelve. 

We are aware that there is difference of opinion among 
able theologians on the question whether there were or were 
not some special legal endowments conferred on the twelve, 
or on the twelve and two or three others who are supposed to 
have been put into the apostolate to fill vacancies in the col¬ 
lege, and which no other ministers enjoyed. But wherever 
the truth may lie, the doctrine of a succession to the aposto¬ 
late has nothing to gain. If there was such a legal distinc¬ 
tion confined to a college, then it may not be looked for out 
of it. And if not, then the supposed succession lacks a dis¬ 
tinct foundation. 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


241 


CHAPTER XII. 

THE PRACTICAL DISTINCTION BETWEEN BISHOP AND 

PRESBYTER. 

Words are the signs of ideas. It is seldom indeed that 
two words are used to mean precisely the same thing in all 
the several senses in which they are used. If it were so, one 
of them would soon fall into disuse. 

When it is said that bishop and presbyter are the same, it 
is not or ought not to be intended to mean that they are the 
same in every sense. The terms are unquestionably used 
synonymously in the Scriptures, for both terms are used at 
the same time, in the same sense, in relation to the same per¬ 
sons. It is now admitted freely on all hands that in the days 
of the apostles the terms bishop and elder, or pjresbyter , were 
used synonymously and interchangeably. They were names 
applied to ministers —to all Christian ministers. 

Paul, in writing to Titus, chap, i., says: u For this cause 
left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldst set in order the things 
that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city as I had ap¬ 
pointed thee : if any be blameless, the husband of one wife, 
having faithful children, not accused of riot or unruly; for a 
bishop must be blameless as the steward of God,” etc. Here 
the same name, bishop and elder , are applied in the same sen¬ 
tence to the same persons. Several other passages prove, 
beyond question, the same thing. Testimony need not be 
11 


242 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


multiplied to prove that, however, which is on all hands ad¬ 
mitted. 

The term bishop means overseer, superintendent, or inspec¬ 
tor, as any one may see in a moment, by consulting a diction¬ 
ary or lexicon. Elder means older—senior in age. The early 
practice of selecting the oldest and most grave and expe¬ 
rienced, to fill offices requiring supervisorship and great pru¬ 
dence, caused a corresponding transfer of the meaning of the 
word so as to apply it directly to the office. In this sense the 
word was commonly used among the Jews. “In the first 
Christian Churches, elders were persons who enjoyed office or 
ecclesiastical functions ; and the word includes apostles, pas¬ 
tors, teachers, presbyters, bishops, or overseers/ ’ — Webster. 

“Presbyter: in the primitive Church an elder, a person 
somewhat advanced in age, who had authority in the Church, 
and whose duty it was to feed the flock over which the Holy 
Spirit had made him overseer.”— Webster. 

“ Bishop : in the primitive Church , a spiritual overseer; 
an elder or presbyter; one who had the pastoral care of a 
Church.”— Webster. 

It is seen, therefore, at a glance, that these words were 
used almost, if not quite, synonymously in the primitive 
Church. 

Now, the question is, in what way, to what extent, and in 
what sense, did there come to be a distinction between them ? 
This question is very easy to answer, it would seem, entirely 
to the satisfaction of all. 

There never has been, to this day, any distinction in the 
use of the words presbyter and elder. As to the term 
bishop, the change in its signification in later years, in com¬ 
mon parlance, came about in this way: 

Nothing is more natural or certain than that, in the pro¬ 
gress of Christianity, the formation of Churches, and the 
extension of the ministry, there would be found more than 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


243 


one elder, bishop, or presbyter in the same Church or pastoral 
charge. Some one of them must necessarily be the pastor; 
and, of course, in this respect he would be distinguished from 
the others. His duties become different from the duties of 
another presbyter or bishop who had not the pastoral charge. 
This circumstance, which is merely adventitious and inci¬ 
dental, so far as concerns the office in question, and which 
must certainly occur in almost every part of the Church, at 
once creates a marked and visible distinction between the dif¬ 
ferent persons holding the office of elder, presbyter, or 
bishop. The elder who has the charge of the congregation 
or church, as its pastor, has, of course, charge also of the 
other elders as their pastor. 

How the selection of one of these ministers—in places 
where there was more than one—would be made, is another 
question which has already been noticed. But that it must 
in some way be made, and thus a distinction be created 
between ministers in respect to this thing, is apparent. 

Now, nothing is more natural than that the pastor-bishop 
should soon become known by some name that would distin¬ 
guish him from bishops who were not pastors. And so the 
term bishop , in process of years, came to be applied uniformly 
to the pastor, and was disused as to other bishops. 

And hence Lord King says : 

u Whether in the apostolic days there were more bishops 
than one in a Church, at first sight seems difficult to resolve. 
That the Holy Scriptures and Clemens Bomanus mention 
many in one Church is certain. And, on the other hand, 
it is as certain that Ignatius, Tertullian, Cyprian, and the 
following Fathers affirm that there was, and ought to be, but 
one in a Church. These contradictions may, at first view, 
seem inextricable; but I hope the following account will 
reconcile all these seeming difficulties, and withal afford us a 


244 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


fair and easy conception of the difference between the ancient 
bishops and presbyters.”—Primitive Church, p. 27. 

Again he says: u The titles of this superior Church officer 
are, most of them, reckoned up in one place by Cyprian, 
which are, 1 bishop, president, pastor, governor, superintend¬ 
ent, and priest/ ”—P. 29. 

Again: “ Having in the former chapter shown that there 
was but one bishop to a Church, we shall in this evidence 
that there was but one Church to a bishop; which will 
appear from this single consideration, viz., that the ancient 
dioceses are never said to contain Churches, in the plural, but 
only a Church, in the singular.”—P. 30. 

The very learned author then goes on to explain exten¬ 
sively, by quoting from all the prominent theological writers 
of those days, that such a thing was not known as a bishop 
having oversight over more than one congregation. He was 
the pastor of the Church. The same author remarks, in 
another place, u Consequently a bishop, having but one parish 
under his jurisdiction, could extend his government no farther 
than one single congregation, because a single congregation 
and a parish were all one, of the same bulk and magnitude.” 
—P. 32. 

A Church to a bishop; a bishop to a Church. A bishop—■ 
that is, the pastor—was selected from the body of elders; the 
same precisely as is the case now everywhere. A Church 
was one single Church. The Churches began more closely 
and distinctly to federate and form alliances among them¬ 
selves, for mutual advantage and protection, in process of time. 
Those of the four largest ancient Churches, namely, Antioch, 
Rome, Carthage, and Alexandria, remained in their single, 
separate congregational form for three hundred years.— 
Primitive Church, p. 43. 

The same distinguished author, who by the way was one 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


245 


of the most learned men in oriental theology and Church his¬ 
tory that England ever produced, and labored perhaps more 
extensively than any other man in searching into the records 
of these and kindred questions, describes a presbyter to be, 
“a person in holy orders, having thereby an inherent right to 
perform the whole office of a bishop ) but being possessed of 
no place or parish, nor actually discharging it, without the 
permission and consent of the bishop of a place or parish .” 

When the office of bishop became vacant from any cause, 
the most usual mode of filling it was by popular election, 
by the whole Church, ministers and members. — Primitive 
Church, pp. 37, 55. (Explained and proved by reference to 
numerous authorities, and the recital of many elections of the 
sort in those days.) 

This explanation of the offices of bishop, presbyter, and 
elder, is not contradicted by any respectable authority what¬ 
ever, so far as I have been able to learn. 

The relation of these ministers was thus the same an¬ 
ciently as it is now, understanding the term 'bishop to mean 
the pastor, or overseer, or minister of a congregation or 
Church. This was called parochial episcopacy. The episco¬ 
pacy of the present day, which is a general or diocesan 
superintendency, is another thing, which has been already 
explained. 

The confederacy of Churches in later ages, and which is 
now very prevalent throughout the best portions of Christen¬ 
dom, has rendered it expedient, in the judgment of most of 
these Churches, or some of them, to establish episcopacy as 
it is described by Jerome, in the fourth century, to have 
existed in and before his day. He says the whole Church 
determined that u one chosen from among the presbyters 
should be put above the rest, to whom all the care of the 
Church should belong.” 

This superintendent, or presiding elder, or presbyter, now 


246 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


took the name of bishop , and the ordinary pastors of the 
Churches were called presbyters or elders, and they have been 
so called ever since. The bishop is the chief or superintend¬ 
ing pastor. The elder or presbyter is the immediate pastor 
of the single congregation. The pastorate, however, is not 
necessary to the office of elder. There are many positions in 
the Church which he may occupy without being a pastor, 
though the pastorate is the more regular duty of a presbyter 
or elder. 

The term priest is sometimes very improperly applied to the 
office of elder or presbyter. The priest is not a minister of 
the gospel. Under the gospel economy, Christ is the only 
priest. The priest offers sacrifice for the people. 

Thus it seems that the material out of which the long con¬ 
troversy respecting bishops and presbyters has grown is ex¬ 
tremely scanty, and lies in a nutshell. The prelatical notions 
which throw so much ecclesiastical and apostolic dignity 
about the “ bishop,” were first got up in England, in the 
early part of the seventeenth century, by Archbishop Laud, a 
prelate of great pride, ambition, and bigotry; and the notion 
of such dignity is so consoling to the pampered pride and am¬ 
bition of ruling officials, such as we find frequently, or always, 
in the proud and worldly Church of England, that no labor 
or pains have been lost in giving the doctrine aid and no¬ 
toriety. 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


247 


PART THREE. 

lire it 

CHAPTER I. 

THE QUESTION IN ISSUE. 

The question of episcopacy, as lield by high Church Epis¬ 
copalians—or of prelacy, as, perhaps, it might be more pro¬ 
perly called—on the one hand, and of presbyterial Church 
government, as it is usually called, on the other, is easily 
stated to the entire satisfaction of all; for, so far as I know, 
all agree as to the grounds occupied on either side. 

The question relates to Church government and ministerial 
authority. On the side of high Church episcopacy it is held, 
1st, that the Saviour and his apostles established the episco¬ 
pal form of government for the Church of Christ, in all time— 
that the Saviour directed this to be the form, and the only 
form, and the apostles so organized and conducted and left it; 
and that this form has been strictly maintained in the Church 
ever since. 

2d. That the Church was also Divinely instituted with three 
orders in the ministry—the bishop, the presbyter, and the 
deacon; and that the right to ordain and govern the Churches, 
with their respective elders and deacons, inheres specifically 
and exclusively in the bishop, or first order. 



248 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


3cl. That the authority, and the only authority, to minister 
the gospel on earth, or which ever did exist, once resided in 
Jesus Christ. That he personally delegated this authority to 
his apostles after his resurrection, and shortly previous to his 
ascension; and that in this commission he authorized them 
to vest it in others, and they others, and so on, by ordination, 
successively from person to person, to the end of time. That 
this power to ordain inheres in bishops alone, as the proper 
and legal successors of the apostles, exclusive of other 
ministers. 

4th. That this succession of ordinations has been, in fact, 
perpetually kept up to the present time, in a line of bishops 
from these apostles so personally commissioned; which com¬ 
mission is written in the last chapter of Matthew, from the six¬ 
teenth to the twentieth verses inclusive. That this ministe¬ 
rial authority so handed down personally, from bishop to 
bishop, constitutes the legality and spiritual vitality of the 
Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, the Church 
of England, and some other Churches. 

5th. Hence it follows, they hold that any supposed minis¬ 
ters, not ordained by bishops in this unbroken line of ordina¬ 
tions, are not ministers of the gospel at all; and are not even 
laymen, unless they belong to the pastoral charge of a regular 
minister who is so ordained, and have been baptized by a min¬ 
ister so in orders, and have been confirmed by a legal bishop— 
that all supposed Churches, or associations of Christians, not 
under the pastoral charge of a minister thus duly authorized, 
and a bishop, are no Churches at all, but are mere unauthor¬ 
ized human associations, entirely unprotected by the cove¬ 
nanted mercies of God—legally they are of the world, for 
the Church of Christ is exclusively defined and bounded as 
above. 

It is desired, right here, to make two observations, which 
can hardly fail to challenge the reader’s attention. 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


249 


It is strange, it is very strange indeed, that, first, the above 
doctrines have been held, more or less, in the Church for the 
last two and a half centuries, by many divines of considerable 
learning, and are this day the sentiments of men of talents; 
and, secondly, the difficulty we find in refuting them is met 
with in their excessive feebleness. Their almost entire want 
of logical substance, presenting almost nothing to brace an 
argument against, is honestly and faithfully believed to be its 
greatest means of defence. 

It cannot fail to be seen at a glance how plainly and di¬ 
rectly these views come in conflict with the principles, and 
with almost all the facts, pertaiuing to the primitive Church, 
which are set forth in the first part of this work, and which 
principles are in their nature unquestionable, and which facts 
are not, for the most part, such as have been heretofore con¬ 
troverted by opposing writers on Church government. 

And if the following observations are found to fall short 
of demonstration , nay, if they do not show conclusively in 
the sequel that there is no debatable question in issue, then 
they may be regarded a failure, and be treated accordingly. 

All this could be done, and perfectly done, in a single 
chapter of ten or a dozen pages, but it is thought best to 
spread the matter a little more fully before the reader. He 
will, therefore, be so good as to exercise a little patience, 
while we proceed somewhat at leisure. 

Although the doctrine in question, when looked fairly into, 
is so entirely baseless as not to be able to present a logical 
issue, yet in the manner in which it is presented by shrewd 
and gifted men, and without the helps which we will en¬ 
deavor to furnish the reader, it is made to appear quite plau¬ 
sible ; and really it is, upon the whole, doing much harm to 
Christianity. It ought to be, it must be, understood. 

And before we go farther, let the reader understand the 
difference between a succession of ordinations coming down 
11 * 


250 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


from the apostles, in a line of bishops, as contradistinguished 
from presbyters, and a succession lying in the latter, or in the 
ministry in common. In either case the doctrine itself is the 
same, if intended to be strictly adhered to; though men 
might differ as to whether it should be confined to bishops, 
or be common in the ordained ministry. 

We cannot consistently oppose the doctrine of apostolic suc¬ 
cession, and then say that succession must be in the ministry, 
and need not be confined to bishops. We cannot say that 
ministers, call them presbyters or bishops, have the exclusive 
Divine right to ordain as between themselves and Christ, 
themselves and the Church, and as between Christ and the 
Church, and at the same time oppose the doctrine of apostolic 
succession; for that is apostolic succession in presbyters, or in 
presbyters and bishops indiscriminately. The doctrine , if 
opposed at all, must be opposed in toto. Those who choose to 
do so, can debate whether the line of succession ought or 
ought not to be confined to bishops, contradistinguished from 
presbyters. 

This point has been, perhaps, sufficiently explained in a 
previous chapter on ordination. 

We shall in the following strictures be confined to the doc¬ 
trine of succession in bishops, as there, and there only, it is 
openly and avowedly held to lie. 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


251 


CHAPTER II. 

IRRELEVANT QUESTIONS. 

The question of apostolic succession naturally divides itself 
into the two following propositions : 

First. Does the theory of Christianity require, absolutely, 
in order to the existence of a ministry and a Church, that the 
former be kept alive by an unbroken succession of ordinations, 
and in no other way ? And, 

Secondly. Has the unbroken chain of succession of ordi¬ 
nations been actually kept up, all along down the history of 
the Church to the present day ? 

Of course, both these propositions must be specifically 
proved. To prove the former and fail in the latter, would be 
the greatest of all possible human disasters. For then we 
have no Church, no ministry of Jesus Christ upon the earth; 
that is, we have no proof that either exists. And nothing 
can be said to exist without proper adequate proof. If the 
theory of Christianity requires a succession of ordinations in 
an unbroken chain, in order to the existence of a Church, 
and if, on further examination, it be found that there is no 
proof that such a succession of ordinations has been main¬ 
tained in the history of the Church, then, of course, there is 
no evidence in the world of the existence of a Church of 
Christ. 

Then it must be proved that the theory of Christianity 


252 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


requires this personal, tactual succession of ordinations. And 
it must be proved historically that this has been done. 

But if the attempt has ever been made to prove, directly, 
either one of these simple natural propositions into which 
the question obviously divides itself, I have never been able 
to see the argument. From a course of somewhat thorough 
reading on the subject, it is the belief of the writer that this 
has never been attempted. 

But in the stead thereof, other questions have been brought 
forward. One of these, and quite a favorite one, is the ques¬ 
tion of three ORDERS in the ministry. 

It appears to have been taken for granted—from what logi¬ 
cal premises or deductions it is certainly difficult to determine—• 
that if it could be established that the Church, at first, had 
three orders in the ministry, the apostolic succession would 
follow of logical necessity. It is beyond the power of logic, 
and most likely beyond the power of history, to ascertain how 
this idea ever obtained either birth or currency. But so it is. 

It is quite certain that the apostolic succession, as held to 
lie in a line of bishops, cannot be maintained without estab¬ 
lishing the doctrine of the three orders. But it is likewise 
quite as certain, that the three orders may be established, and 
the doctrine of succession be left without a feather of support. 

Suppose the three orders were established. It still remains 
to be proved that it was the permanent law of the Church. 
Perhaps it would only prove that it would be best to have three 
orders in the ministry; that the Church would do better in that 
way; that it was necessary to the perfection, but not to the 
being of a Church. To prove, if it could be proved, that at 
the first there were three orders in the ministry, of itself 
proves, obviously, nothing conclusive on the subject of the 
apostolic succession. 

But still, notwithstanding this plain, simple, and natural 
conclusion, a very large proportion of the debates in the books, 


TIIE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


253 


which claim to discuss the question of apostolic succession, 
merely argue the simple fact whether, at the first, there were, 
or were not, three orders in the ministry. Surely this is a 
question of no importance, by itself considered, in examining 
the question of succession. 

As to the doctrine of three orders, it is in itself, as a ques¬ 
tion pertaining to ecclesiastical government, by no means 
unimportant. It has been hereinbefore discussed in its appro¬ 
priate place. 

Again, probably a full half or more of all the debates in 
this country and England, which claim to be on the question 
of the apostolic succession, after deducting those almost end¬ 
less strictures which are merely personal between the com¬ 
batants, are on the question of episcopacy. The books, 
volume after volume, are full of it. They debate the bare 
simple question whether at the first, the government of the 
Church was or was not episcopal. 

It would not do to say that the question of episcopacy has 
no connection whatever with that of the succession; but it 
will do to say, and it must be said, that the relation is remote 
and contingent. 

It is very true that the high-Churchman is bound to estab¬ 
lish episcopacy, not only as the form of the government of 
the first Churches, but much more with regard to it, before 
he can hegin his argument on succession. He must, of course, 
prove that bishops existed, as a first or highest order of minis¬ 
ters, the legal governors of Churches, before he can prove 
that succession existed and descended in them. But to prove 
that they existed., as the rulers of the Church, at the first, and 
ever since, is certainly, of itself, proving nothing whatever 
about apostolic succession. If this could be done, he has 
merely established the 'possibility of his being able to com¬ 
mence an argument on apostolic succession ; but he has cer¬ 
tainly, as yet, not proceeded one inch with this latter question. 


254 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


The question of episcopacy, as a matter of the polity of 
Churches, and the structure of the ministry, is certainly im¬ 
portant, and has been examined in an appropriate place in a 
former chapter. But the necessity of an elaborate discussion 
of episcopacy in order to get at the question of apostolic suc¬ 
cession, I have not been able to discover. It is certainly, 
however, a fine stroke of policy in the high-Church debater 
to call off his opponent into any irrelevant question. The 
farther he can get from the question into a deep-water discus¬ 
sion of some other question, the better, certainly, for him. 

Again, a large portion of the controversy respecting apos¬ 
tolic succession, or which claims to be such, relates to the 
writings of the Fathers. We shall have occasion to refer to 
these authors in a future chapter, and need only now remark, 
that extensive arguments are made by high-Churchmen to prove 
that these Fathers, in very early ages of the Church, spoke of 
the Churches as being under the charge or control of bishops. 
All this, however, proves nothing about either apostolic 
succession or Church government. For it is admitted on all 
hands that, in these early ages, the term bishop was applied to 
the same office as elder or presbyter. Hence, as the term as 
used then did not refer to the office of bishop, as we use the 
word now, by the custom of years, the proof amounts obvi¬ 
ously to nothing. 

There are other irrelevant matters which high-Church 
writers lug into this debate, that may perhaps be alluded to 
hereafter. In fact, the debates in whole, on that side, are 
almost wholly irrelevant to the vital question in issue. 

We can therefore very safely admit all they wish to prove 
on these points, true or untrue. For, in debating any specific 
question, we can well afford to admit any thing on any other 
question. 


TIIE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


255 


CHAPTER III. 

TIIE TRANSMISSION OF AUTHORITY. 

Jesus Christ introduced and tauglit the precepts and 
truths of religion eighteen hundred years ago. Since that 
day he has not been spoken to, face to face, by man, nor 
has he thus spoken to man. The words which he spoke out 
of his mouth at that time, constitute the law, and the whole 
law, of Christianity. These words are personally binding 
upon all men. And nothing else than these words are per¬ 
sonally binding on any man, as a matter of religious faith. 

Now, the question is, How are we, at this day, to receive 
the words of Christ thus spoken, in order to be bound by 
them ? 

There are two, and but two, conceivable modes. In the 
one case, they may have been spoken to men, and then re¬ 
spoken, on and on, and so transmitted traditionally to this 
day, and now spoken to us. Or, they may have been written 
and handed down to us in a book. 

Now, it is the doctrine of all Christian Churches on earth, 
except Romanists—if they are to be considered a Church— 
that the only binding authority upon Christians, at this day, 
is contained in the written Scriptures. At all events, we are 
certainly bound by the authority of the Scriptures. And the 
question is, whether we are bound by authority outside of the 
Scriptures. If so, then such authority must be in opposition 
to, or in addition to, that which is in the Scriptures. For, 


256 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


if it be the same as that in the Scriptures, that is the same as 
saying we are bound by the Scriptures, which all men admit. 
.But the question is, in regard to the binding force of author¬ 
ity out of the Scriptures. 

It is plain that we cannot be bound by authority out of the 
Scriptures which is in opposition thereto. But can we be 
bound by authority out of the Scriptures which is merely in 
addition to the Scriptures ? 

Authority transmitted to us from man to man, traditionally 
or historically, out of the Scriptures, is that which is supposed 
to reside in bishops , in virtue of their ordination, which came 
down successively from man to man. It came down alongside 
of the Scriptures, but not in them. Let us look at it a 
moment. 

It claims to have power from Christ to do certain things; 
for instance, to ordain ministers, to govern—that is, to issue 
binding commands to the Churches—that is, to persons com¬ 
posing the Churches. It must therefore claim infallibility, 
for no authority was ever supposed or claimed to be binding 
on Christians which is not infallible. 

Then the doctrine of transmitted authority, in the Church, 
from minister to minister, and which is supposed to be bind¬ 
ing upon men, is simply the doctrine of Church infallibility; 
which is the essence of Romanism, and the only essential 
feature which distinguishes Romanism from Christianity. 

Nothing can be more clear than the impossibility of setting 
aside this argument. Here is a bishop who claims to exercise 
authority from Christ. How did he obtain this authority? 
Not directly from the written Scriptures; but from another 
bishop, who ordained him. And he received his authority in 
the same way; and so on, and on, back, in a chain of suc¬ 
cessive ordinations, to Christ. This authority, therefore, came 
down otherwise than in the written Scriptures. And if it be 
binding upon men, it is infallible. And so the channel of 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 257 

transmission—the bishops—is an infallible channel; the 
Church is infallible. 

And if this authority in bishops, so transmitted in a line 
of bishops, should, in the opinions of fallible men, seem to 
vary from the Scriptures, the latter must of course give way; 
for authority to govern Christians is authority to construe the 
Scriptures, and such construction will, of course, be in con¬ 
formity to the authority claimed. So here we have Church 
authority, Church infallible authority, as clear, perfect, and 
distinct as Romanism does or can claim. 

We have more to say on this subject in a future chapter. 
It is desired here only to contrast the two modes of transmit¬ 
ting authority down the current of time, from the only source 
of authority to living Christians, and to show that the written 
Scriptures must either be laid aside, as authority supremely 
binding upon Christians, or they must be regarded as the 
only proper channel of transmission of authority, and Chris¬ 
tians must go directly to this authority for all binding obliga¬ 
tions. 


258 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


CHAPTER IY. 

THE SCRIPTURES. 

There is not, nor is it pretended by any one that there is, 
one word, pro or con , in the Scriptures, on the subject of 
apostolic succession, or which in any way directly relates to 
it. This is the only instance in the whole range of theo¬ 
logical or ecclesiastical controversy, where both the affirma¬ 
tion and denial are not claimed, at least, to be based in the 
words of Scripture. The only use that is attempted to be 
made of the Scriptures in this controversy is to prove some¬ 
thing about episcopacy, as a form of Church government; 
and that there were originally three orders in the ministry. 
But we have already seen that proofs of episcopacy and of 
three orders do not, of themselves, separately or conjointly 
considered, touch the question of apostolic succession. And 
we have also seen in the first part the true nature of Church 
government, and of orders. 

It would seem that any alleged doctrine of Christianity 
ought to find some support in the Scriptures; but this does 
not, nor is it pretended by any one that it does, except in the 
indirect and far-fetched manner above alluded to. 

The only text of Scripture which is ever brought promi¬ 
nently forward, and which is supposed to relate to the ques¬ 
tion in hand, is the last three verses of the last chapter of 
Matthew, as follows: 

“And Jesus came and spake unto them, (the eleven apos- 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 259 

ties,) saying, All power is given unto me, in heaven and in 
earth. Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in 
the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: 
teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have com¬ 
manded you ; and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end 
of the world.” 

From this text it is inferred that ordinations in the Church 
must invariably be confined to bishops: that the Church can¬ 
not exist in the absence of such ordinations; and that no 
ministers are Christian ministers who are not thus ordained. 

This is certainly the most extraordinary instance of party 
and sectarian prepossession to be found, probably, within the 
range of religious debate and difference of opinion. So far 
from proving any of these things, it is not even remotely in¬ 
timated in the passage that ordination, at all, is a Christian 
doctrine. With precisely equal propriety—and with precisely 
no propriety at all—it might be argued that it proves that 
deacons must ordain; or that civil rulers must ordain. How 
can it prove any thing on a subject which is not in the re¬ 
motest degree alluded to, or which is not in the passage sup¬ 
posed even to have been heard of ? This is not an attempt to 
construe Scripture; it is an attempt to make Scripture. 

Again : it is supposed that the instruction given by St. 
Paul to Timothy and Titus, concerning what they were re¬ 
spectively to do by way of supervision of the Churches in 
Ephesus and Crete, proves that Timothy and Titus were 
bishops. And suppose it does. What does that prove respect¬ 
ing the apostolic succession ? Why, manifestly nothing. 

Let it be remembered that the doctrine of the apostolic 
succession is this : 1. The theory of Christianity requires an 

uninterrupted succession of ordinations in bishops, in order to 
the continued existence of a ministry and a Church. 2. 
Such a succession has actually been preserved. This is the 
most ground and the least ground it can possibly occupy. 


260 


TIIE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


Now, suppose Timotliy and Titus were bishops. What does 
that fact prove respecting either one of these propositions ? 
It might just as well be said that it proves some geographical 
proposition respecting the country of Palestine. There is not 
the slightest logical relation between the premise and the 
conclusion. 

But what do the instructions of St. Paul to Timothy and 
Titus prove respecting episcopal functions in the latter ? They 
prove, demonstrably, the very opposite of what is claimed. 
What is the nature of the epistles of Paul to these two 
evangelists—or whatever official name any one chooses to give 
them ? They are letters of instruction , of teachings, of com¬ 
mand, of authority, giving directions and exhortations as to 
what they were to do, and how they were to hehave them¬ 
selves as discreet and prudent ministers. In these epistles, 
the spirit of Christian meekness, of brotherly love and affec¬ 
tion, is, in a most sublime and masterly manner, mingled with 
the spirit of authority and command. 

Let the reader turn to these epistles. In the first , see 
chapters iii. 14, 15; iv. 14-16; v. 19-23; vi. 11-14, 20. 
In 2 Timothy, let him see chaps, ii. 1, 2; iv. 1, 2, 21. In 
Titus, chaps, i. 5; ii. 1-7; iii. 9. Listen to the great 
apostle : u I charge thee, therefore, before God and the Lord 
Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his 
appearing and his kingdom, preach the word; be instant in 
season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all long- 
suffering and doctrine.” “ Lay hands suddenly on no man.” 

Is ever such language as this addressed to a bishop? Does 
a bishop thus receive the mandates of a superior ? A bishop 
of the prelatical stamp is himself a prelate. He himself is 
the governor of ministers and Churches. He commands 
others. He does not himself receive instructions, such as we 
see all through these epistles. 

What the duties were which were performed by Timothy 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


261 


and Titus is another question. That they exercised super¬ 
visory authority and care over these newly formed Churches, 
and among these almost uninitiated Christians, is never dis¬ 
puted. But were they bishops of the order of prelates ? The 
personal instructions, directions, commands, under which 
they discharged these duties, as issued by another, most 
peremptorily and conclusively forbid such an idea. 

This chapter, therefore, need not be lengthened. The doc¬ 
trine of apostolic succession is the affirmative side of the 
argument. We deny its truth, and wait for the proof. We 
receive no testimony from the Scriptures. In such instances 
as they are alluded to, they testify on the other side. 


2G2 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


CHAPTER V. 

THE FATHERS. 

Christian writers, who lived and wrote from the days of 
the apostles, on to the fourth or fifth century, are called, by 
way of honor or distinction, Fathers. Among the learned in 
more modern ages, there has been considerable difference of 
opinion with regard to these writings. In the first place, a 
great many epistles, essays, and books have been attributed to 
these men, which have been ascertained to be forgeries. 
Others are considered of doubtful authority; and very few 
are, on all hands, among the learned, acknowledged to be 
genuine. 

There has also been some difference of opinion in regard to 
the men themselves. Some of them appear to have been men 
of learning and talents, and pretty well acquainted with the 
Christian religion for their opportunity; while others ex¬ 
hibited but very moderate parts, were quite superstitious, 
and seem to have been led astray by religious whims and 
queer notions. They were mostly, however, believed to be 
men of undaunted and undoubted piety. 

These Fathers are almost the sole witnesses relied upon by 
high-Churchmen to prove apostolic succession. In regard to 
their testimony, we must make one or two observations touch¬ 
ing the matter generally. 

Such of their writings as are known to be genuine, furnish 
the best testimony as to historic facts belonging to the Church 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


263 


in their respective ages, which we have. Their opinions are, 
of course, no better than the opinions of other men. Clement 
of Rome, Hennas, Ignatius, and Polycarp, were contemporary 
with the apostles, or some of them, for a very short time, and 
had, no doubt, therefore, opportunities of learning some things 
in regard to religion directly from them, so far as personal 
intercourse afforded opportunity. 

Secondly, I have never seen, in any writings attributed to 
them, a paragraph, or sentence, or part of a sentence, on the 
subject of a chain of successive ordinations in the Church, 
either for the purpose of preserving the Church’s being, or for 
any other purpose. If any one of them ever wrote a word on 
this subject ,pro or con , I have never read it in their writings, 
or seen it quoted, or attempted to be quoted, from them. 

They frequently speak of the bishop as having charge of 
the particular Church about which they are speaking. And 
they as frequently—nay, much more frequently—use the term 
presbyter, or elder, in the same way. 

It may be inquired, then, How, or in what way, are their 
writings brought forward to prove the succession ? This 
question is more easily asked than answered. Perhaps a 
little light may be gathered from the following circumstance 
or similar ones. 

In 1844, Hr. Chapman, of Lexington, Ky., published a 
volume of 11 Sermons upon the Church,” to prove apostolic 
succession. His fifth sermon is devoted to the testimony of 
the Fathers. His sixth commences on this wise : 

u I cannot but flatter myself that the last discourse delivered 
upon these words, presented the most clear and invincible 
testimony from the primitive Fathers, of the Divine origin of 
our episcopal ministry ) a ministry comprehending the three 
distinct orders of bishops, presbyters, and deacons. Had it 
been necessary, I could have extracted volumes of evidence 
of a precisely similar import.” 


264 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


Now, I have read that discourse alluded to, carefully, and 
I affirm that it does not contain one word, or one idea, on the 
subject of, or in any way relating to, the Divine origin of any 
thing, so far as any sentiments attributed to the Fathers are 
concerned. 

These are the kinds of arguments we have to deal with. 

The quotations from the Fathers which are considered the 
strongest, and are most relied upon by the high-Churchmen 
to prove apostolic succession, shall be faithfully copied below. 
We can make room for but few, but they shall be the best, 
carefully selected, such as it is believed any high-Churchman 
would prefer. 

The following is quoted by Dr. Chapman and others from 
Ignatius: 

“ Seeing then I have been judged worthy to see you by 
Damos, your most excellent bishop; and by your very worthy 
presbyters, Bassas and Apollonius, and by my fellow-servant, 
Sotio the deacon, in whom I rejoice, forasmuch as he is sub¬ 
ject unto his bishop as to the grace of God, and to the pres¬ 
bytery as to the law of Jesus Christ.” 

Again : “ I exhort you that ye study to do all things in a 
Divine concord; your bishop presiding in the place of God; 
your presbyters in the place of the council of the apostles ; 
and your deacons,* most dear to me, being intrusted with the 
ministry of Jesus Christ.” 

The following language is attributed to Irenceus: 

“ We reckon up those who were instituted bishops in the 
Churches by the apostles and their successors, even unto us; 
to whom also they committed the Churches themselves; for 
they desired those to be exceeding perfect and irreproachable 
whom they left successors, delivering up to them their own 
place and mastership.” “The blessed apostles therefore 
founding and instructing the Church (of Borne,) delivered to 
Linus the episcopal office of ruling the Church.” 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


2G5 


The following is quoted from Clement of Alexandria: 

u There are other precepts without number, which concern 
men in particular capacities; some of which relate to presby¬ 
ters, others which belong to bishops, and others respecting 
deacons.” 

The following is quoted from Cyprian: 

“ What danger of offending the Lord ought we not to fear, 
when some of the presbyters, neither mindful of the gospel 
nor of their own place, neither regarding the future judgment 
of the Lord nor the bishop now set over them, challenge 
entirely to themselves, with haughty speech and contempt of 
their superior, what was never done at all under our prede¬ 
cessors.” 

From Jerome they quote the following: 

“ What Aaron, and his sons, and the Levites were in tho 
temple, the same, bishops, presbyters, and deacons, may 
claim to themselves in the Church.” And in another place, 
“ What does a bishop do which a presbyter may not do, except 
ordination ?” 

The “invincible testimony” supposed to be contained in 
these extracts is found in the fact that the writers speak of 
bishops, and of presbyters, and of deacons, separately and 
distinctly. 

Every whit, however, of the supposed testimony, so far as 
it regards any questions here in issue, vanishes the moment 
we consider that, whatever construction we give their lan¬ 
guage, or whatever we may suppose them to mean by the 
terms bishop, presbyter, and elder, they do not in the 
slightest degree intimate that this distinction arises from any 
Divine command or arrangement. They only speak of the 
distinction as existing. The same distinction exists now, in 
many of the non-prelatical Churches of the present day. 

The question is not, whether these distinctions in the names 
or duties of ministers existed, at any particular time; but 
12 


266 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


whether they existed in virtue of Divine command , or an 
arrangement of the Churches. 

No one acquainted with the subject ever denied for a mo¬ 
ment that bishop and presbyter may be spoken of distinctly 
and separately. This is not the question. The question is, , 
whether, by command of Jesus Christ, the office of bishoy 
was essentially and inherently superior to that of presbyter. 
No one acquainted with the subject ever denied the superi¬ 
ority of the bishop over the presbyter who was not bishop. 
This is not the question. The question is, Was this distinction 
the result of superior grade or order in the office itself? or 
was it the result of an incidental or adventitious arrangement 
of the Church, voluntarily entered into ? 

For instance : in the army they generally have, at each garri¬ 
son or station, an officer called the officer of the day. This 
officer may be a captain, or an officer of lower grade. While 
he holds this position, he has command of the garrison. He 
is, in respect of the duties pertaining to this matter, the supe¬ 
rior of his equals, and even of his superiors in rank. But 
he is still a captain, or a lieutenant, or major, as the case 
may be. 

This point is so common and simple that it can scarcely be 
misunderstood. It is exhibited around us every day in most 
of our Churches. 

The question, however, does not relate to the apostolic suc¬ 
cession : it only refers—let their language be construed as it 
may—to Church government. And it has already been ex¬ 
plained that the apostolic succession is not incident to any 
particular form of government. To prove three orders in the 
ministry, either by a Divine or human law, only clears the 
way, but does not take the first step in proving the apostolic 
succession. 

But moreover: what do these writers mean by the dis¬ 
tinction they draw between bishop and elder, in speaking of 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


26T 


them separately ? Let the reader be reminded of what he 
has had already explained to him, in the chapter on 11 The 
practical distinction between bishop and presbyter ,” and he 
will at once see that this is the natural manner in which these 
men would have spoken. He will see that this language no 
more proves three orders in the ministry by Divine command 
than a man’s language would now, if he were to speak dis¬ 
tinctively of the pastor of a Church and of other ministers 
belonging to the same Church who were not its pastor. 

The “ bishop” which these fathers speak of was the pastor; 
and the “ presbyter” was the same kind of minister, with this 
only distinction, that he was not the pastor of a Church. 

The “ Churchman Armed,” page 29, in a note by the 
“American editor,” from the date and initials supposed to be 
Dishop Whittingham, of Baltimore, one of the staunchest 
high-Churchmen in America, says, under date of A. D. 200, 
that bishop meant “ officiating presbyter.” 

That remark is true—just as true coming from Bishop 
Whittingham as from any other man. And its truth, at one 
blow, entirely displaces all the long chapters and volumes 
full of argument, put forth to prove that two ranks or grades 
or orders in the ministry must certainly exist where any pecu¬ 
liar duties are placed upon any one. The note at the bottom 
of the page, by the American editor, connected with the word 
“bishop,” who is spoken of in the text as the minister of the 
Church, in explaining a historic matter, is this : “ or officiating 
presbyter.” Precisely so. 

But let us look a single step farther into some of the 
writings of these same Fathers above quoted, and see how 
they explain themselves. We will see whether they mean 
by bishop, a Divinely instituted rank or order permanently in¬ 
herent in the ministry, without which a Church or ministry 
cannot exist, or a mere officiating presbyter—one chosen from 
the presbytery to be the pastor. 


268 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


Let Ignatius explain the sense in which he uses the term 
bishop as above quoted, and the relation which he regards as 
subsisting between the presbyter and the bishop. 

But truth and justice require that first the reader be ap¬ 
prised of some things touching these so-called epistles of Ig¬ 
natius, their genuineness, etc. 

Probably the best translation we have of the Fathers of the 
first centuries, and that which is certainly in the highest re¬ 
pute among Episcopalians, is by Archbishop Wake. His in¬ 
troduction to the epistles of Ignatius commences with this 
paragraph: 

u Before I enter upon that account which I am to give of 
the epistles of St. Ignatius, (the next that follow in the pre¬ 
sent collection,) it will be necessary for me to observe that 
there have been considerable differences in the editions of 
the epistles of this holy man, no less than in the judgment 
of our late critics concerning them. To pass by the first and 
most imperfect of them, the best that for a long time was 
extant contained not only a great number of epistles falsely 
accredited to this author, but even those that were genuine 
were so altered and corrupted that it was hard to find out the 
true Ignatius in them.”—Apostolic Fathers, p. 101. 

The Christian Observer, an Episcopalian periodical pub¬ 
lished in London, says on this subject: “ I do not mean to in¬ 
sinuate that the whole of these six epistles is a forgery : on the 
contrary, many parts of them afford strong internal evidence 
of their own genuineness; but with respect to particular pas¬ 
sages which affect the present dispute, (the polity of the prim¬ 
itive Church,) there is not a sentence which I would venture 
to allege. The language, at the earliest, is that of the fourth 
century.”—Stanton’s Prelacy Examined, p. 132. 

Blondell says: “I am constrained to believe they are 
forgeries.” Calvin repudiates them as £t filthy trash,” made 
long after Ignatius was dead. Salmasius says they are “ coun- 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


269 


terfeits,” and Archbishop Usher “ willingly subscribes’ 7 to 
that opinion. And still later researches pronounce them 
forgeries without doubt. 

This is the kind of testimony we have to deal with. It is 
strange that high-Church controvertists in quoting Ignatius do 
not hint to their readers that there is any thing doubtful with 
regard to their authority. So far as I have seen, however, in 
this country, and for the mast part in England, this is uni¬ 
formly the case. 

But still, let us see what Ignatius is said to have said, either 
by his forgers or copyists, as the case may chance to be. 

Whatever else he does, he puts presbyters as high in office 
as he does bishops. As quoted above, he says “ presbyters 
preside in the council of the apostles.” 

Again : “Also be subject to your presbyters, as to the apos¬ 
tles of Jesus Christ, our hope.” Chap, i., v. 6, p. 132. In 
verse 8, same page, he speaks of “ the presbyters as the san¬ 
hedrim of God, and college of the apostles.” 

In his epistle to the Smyrneans, chap, iii., v. 1, p. 156, he 
speaks of the duty of following “ the presbytery as the apos¬ 
tles.” I quote from Wake’s translation. 

Nothing is more conclusive than this, that Ignatius, or his 
forgers,—be it which way it may,—speak uniformly, in these 
epistles, of bishops and presbyters with the distinction and 
relation explained, in regard to them, in our former chapter 
on that subject. So that, so far as this question is concerned, 
we may readily admit every word of these epistles of Ignatius 
to be as genuine and true as Scripture. They do not contain 
one word that intimates that bishops rank in a higher order 
than presbyters, or that they differ from them in any other 
way than in the mere circumstance of their having the pas¬ 
toral care. And it is only occasionally that he intimates 
this distinction. He unquestionably, in several instances 
as above quoted, speaks of “presbyters” as having the em 


270 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


tire ecclesiastical charge, and even presiding among the 
apostles. 

Next in order, let us see how Irenaeus explains himself: 
“ When we refer them to that apostolic tradition which is pre¬ 
served in the Churches through the succession of their pres¬ 
byters, these men oppose the tradition, pretending that being 
more wise than not only the presbyters, but the apostles 
themselves, they have found the .uncorrupted truth.” 

In another place he speaks of Polycarp as “ bishop,” but 
likewise speaks of him as “ that blessed and apostolic presby¬ 
ter.” Again: “We ought to obey those presbyters in the 
Church who have succession, as we have shown, from the 
apostles : who, with the succession of the episcopate , received 
the certain gift of truth according to the good pleasure of the 
Father.”—Coleman’s Primitive Church, pp. 69, 70. 

Here the “ episcopate” is expressly ascribed to the “ pres¬ 
byters.” 

I have never been able to find any thing in the writings of 
the Fathers, or in any thing quoted or said to be quoted from 
them, which spoke of bishops and presbyters distinctly from each 
other, in any sense which placed the one above the other in 
office or rank. They uniformly speak of them in their rela¬ 
tion to each other, when they distinguish between them at all, 
as is explained in our chapter on that subject. 

Clement of Alexandria is another author referred to a few 
pages back. He lived in the third century. He was himself 
a presbyter, and not a bishop, that is, he was not a pastor when 
he wrote as follows : “We who have rule over the Churches 
are shepherds and pastors after the image of the Good Shep¬ 
herd.” Without multiplying quotations, we will present one 
which will show conclusively that he regarded presbyters as 
occupying a position, at least, as high in rank as bishops. In 
speaking of public worship, he says : “ One part is performed 
by the superior ministers, another part by the inferior minis- 


t 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


271 


ters. The superior part is performed by the presbyters • the 
inferior or servile part by the deacons.”—Powell’s Apostoli¬ 
cal Succession, p. 120. Nashville ed., 1848. 

Jerome also was quoted from. It is most strange, indeed, 
that high-Churchmen quote from Jerome. Yet they do garble 
his language as above. 

The following two quotations comprise all of any special 
importance that is said by Jerome on this subject. They 
were translated by Mr. Yerger from the best copies, from two 
different parts of his works, and were, perhaps, forced forward 
from that gentleman,—who, by the way, is undoubtedly one of 
the most learned and able writers in behalf of prelacy on 
either side of the Atlantic,—iu a debate with the author. The 
two paragraphs entire, in Mr. Yerger’s own language, are 
here presented. (Debate, pages 84, 85.) 

“A presbyter, therefore, is the same as a bishop; and be¬ 
fore there were, by the devil’s instigation, parties in religion, 
and it was said among the people, I am of Paul, I of Apollos, 
and I of Cephas, (1 Cor. i. 12,) the Churches were governed 
by a common council of presbyters. Afterwards, indeed, 
when each thought those he baptized were his, not Christ’s, 
it was decreed through the whole world that one chosen from 
the presbyters should be put above the rest, to whom, all the 
care of the Church should belong, and the seeds of schism be 
taken away. Should any one think that it is not the view of 
the Scriptures, but our own, that bishop and presbyter are the 
same, and that one is the name of age, the other of office, let 
him read the words of the apostle to the Philippians, saying, 
‘Paul and Timothy, servants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints 
in Christ Jesus that are at Philippi, with the bishops and 
deacons: grace be unto you, and peace/ (Phil. i. 1, 2,) and 
so forth. Philippi is a city of Macedonia, and certainly in 
one city there could not be more bishops, as they are now 


272 


TIIE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


called. But at that time they called those bishops whom they 
called presbyters ; therefore, he speaks indifferently of bishops 
as of presbyters.” 

u But that afterwards one was chosen who should be above 
the rest, was done as a remedy against schism; lest each 
drawing: the Church of Christ to himself should break it in 
pieces. For at Alexandria, from the Evangelist Mark to 
Heraclas and Dionysius, the bishops, the presbyters always 
chose one from among them, placed in a higher grade, named 
him bishop, like an army should make an emperor, or deacons 
should choose one of themselves, whom they know as most 
industrious, and call him arch-deacon. For what can a bishop 
do, ordination excepted, that a presbyter cannot?” 

Jerome wrote in the fourth century. It is, perhaps, impos¬ 
sible for stronger testimony against prelacy, or the Divine 
superiority of bishops, to be adduced from any quarter, than 
is here presented from Jerome. He commences by saying, 
emphatically, “A presbyter, therefore, is the same as a bishop.” 
The exception which he speaks of at the close, in regard 
to ordination, is of course, as he explains, a Church regu¬ 
lation. 

Polycarp is also brought forward by high-Church writers. 
He was one of the primitive Fathers; died in A. D. 166. 
Bishop Otey, who from some strange un-American fancy styles 
himself “ Bishop of Tennessee,” in his “ Three Discourses” 
on prelacy, at page 58, after presenting some testimony from 
Polycarp, says, “ Here again is direct evidence against that 
parity which opposes itself to episcopacy.” 

Now, it so happens, that in the epistle of Polycarp—(there 
is but one epistle extant, of about nine pages, in Wake’s 
translation)—the word bishop does not occur in any way. 
He speaks exclusively of presbyters and deacons. Not the 
slightest allusion is made to any other ministers or any other 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


273 


office in the ministry. He does not in any way allude—and 
it is no doubt accidental that he does not—but he does not 
even allude to any distinction between the pastor and other 
presbyters in his whole letter. He speaks exclusively of 
presbyters and deacons. Yet it is u direct evidence !” 

This is the kind of argument we have to contend with. 
Its imbecility is absolutely silly. And yet it is gravely put 
forth with apparent earnestness, and printed in books, and 
called “ discourses,” “ letters,” “ essays,” and the like, often¬ 
times in ponderous volumes, as though it were really argu¬ 
ment; and with the high-sounding authority of bishop, 
president, or doctor of divinity ! 

There is not in all the writings of the fathers, genuine or 
spurious, one word, ever pretended to be quoted or garbled 
from any thing ever attributed to them, which hints at the 
idea that, in their days, either by Divine or human law, the 
office of bishop was above that of presbyter, or different from 
it, except, as before explained, that the presbyter who had 
charge of the Church or congregation as pastor was called 
bishop. 

And as to the doctrine of “ apostolic succession,” which 
they are called upon to sustain by t( direct evidence,” and 
whose writings are put forth as u the most clear and invinci¬ 
ble testimony” in favor of, there is not in their writings, there 
was never pretended to be quoted from them, a sentence, or 
part of a sentence, which gives the slightest hint that they 
ever heard of such a doctrine ! There is absolutely no more 
or nearer an allusion, in the writings of the Fathers, to the 
notion of a successive chain of ordinations in bishops, as a 
superior order of ministers to elders or presbyters, in which, 
or in virtue of which ordinations, is contained the vitality of 
the Church and the ministry, than is to be found in the last 
novel. Such a question is in no way, nearly or remotely, 
12 * 


274 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


alluded to or hinted at. And yet, in discussing this question, 
we are compelled to travel through and among the Fathers, 
because our opponents do. We might with the same legal or 
logical propriety be led through treatises upon navigation or 
agriculture, or be made to weigh and investigate the pages of 
the spelling-book ! 


I 


4 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


275 


CHAPTER VI. 

DIFFICULTY WITH REGARD TO ST. PAUL. 

The doctrine of apostolic succession is based on tins wise :— 
The only authority to preach and minister the Gospel resided 
in the first place in Jesus Christ. After his death and resur¬ 
rection, and a very short time before his ascension, he gave 
specific authority to his eleven apostles to preach, as recorded 
at the close of the Gospel by St. Matthew. Thus the only 
authority in men to preach resided in these eleven men per¬ 
sonally. They had authority to preach, and to communicate 
the authority to others, and they to others, and so on, by ordi¬ 
nation personally performed from man to man; and outside 
of this chain of successive ordinations there is no authority 
to preach. 

This is the doctrine of succession. He who presumes to 
preach outside of this chain of ordinations is a schismatic and 
a wrong-doer. 

Now, there is a twofold difficulty with regard to St. Paul. 
He was not one of these twelve men. He was a wicked sin¬ 
ner at the time, and for several years afterward. But imme¬ 
diately on his being converted, without waiting for ordination, 
or for apostles, or for authority, he went forthwith to preach¬ 
ing. He preached several years, certainly, without the con¬ 
sent and without the knowledge of the apostles; for, accord¬ 
ing to the best and most probable history of his ministry, it 
was about four or five years after he commenced preaching 


276 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


that he went to Jerusalem, and the disciples would not recog¬ 
nize him as a minister, or even as a disciple. See Acts ix. 
26, 27. This was the first the apostles knew of him. 

Now, here was a schismatic and wrong-doer, as much as it 
is possible for any man to be a schismatic and wrong-doer, ac¬ 
cording to this rule. It is no argument at all to say that St. 
Paul was an apostle, and thus slur the matter over. The only 
authority on earth to preach the gospel resided in the eleven 
apostles as first communicated to them; and supposing that 
they ordained Matthias, then there were twelve. This is the 
root of all authority to preach. Paul certainly received no 
authority from them. But it may be said that Paul received 
his authority to preach directly from Christ, in virtue of his 
being an apostle. Then the foundation of the whole scheme 
is destroyed, because then the commission recited at the close 
of Matthew is not the only authority given by Christ to 
preach the gospel. And if Christ gave authority to one per¬ 
son outside of the eleven, who can say how many or who else 
received authority in the same way ? Barnabas was called an 
apostle in the New Testament. How did he receive his au¬ 
thority ? And there were still other persons called apostles. 
How did they receive authority? Would succession be good 
if traced back to a dozen or twenty other persons than the 
eleven ? The doctrine says it must be traced to the eleven; 
and it also says it is good if traced to Paul, and consequently 
to several other persons outside of the eleven. In the very 
outset, therefore, it makes war upon its own foundation prin¬ 
ciples. 

But again : Paul was either right or wrong in preaching 
the gospel before he first met the apostles at Jerusalem. It 
is certain he had received no authority from them. If he 
had received authority from Christ, then the apostles were 
wrong in not recognizing him as a preacher. Paul was utterly 
unable to convince the apostles that he was a disciple. It 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 277 

required the interference and assurances of Barnabas to in¬ 
duce them to recognize him even as a disciple, or in any way. 

So, according to the doctrine of prelacy, Paul probably did 
as much harm in preaching without authority after his con¬ 
version as he did by persecution before. Nor docs he appear 
to have improved much afterward. 

Some years after this he was ordained at Antioch by a pro¬ 
phets and teachers,” where it appears there was not an apostle 
present. Now, if no ministry is valid other than that which 
has its root in the commission which Christ gave to the eleven 
apostles as above, then Paul never did have authority to preach, 
for he was neither one of these eleven, nor was he ordained 
by one of them. 

But this is not the greatest difficulty. The apostolic suc¬ 
cession is oftentimes attempted, or said to be attempted, to 
be traced to him, as an original ordainer. But what is gained 
by tracing ordinations to him ? The ordaining unction was 
not in him; for he was not one of those on whom it was origi¬ 
nally conferred, nor was he in the stream descending from 
them. 

Our opponents must be consistent, and stand by their own 
principles after fixing them somewhere. If St. Paul had 
original apostolic authority to ordain, then he became pos¬ 
sessed of it in some other way than by the commission given 
in the last of Matthew. And then that other way, whatever 
it be, is also a valid source of the ordaining authority. Or, if 
the commission in Matthew be the original and only commis¬ 
sion given to mankind—as is contended by high-Churchmeu 
—then St. Paul is out of it; and had not only not authority 
to ordain others, but he had not even authority to preach 
himself. How did he get it? No man can tell any possi¬ 
ble way, without removing the grand corner-stone of prelacy. 

To say that Paul became possessed of authority to preach 
and to ordain in virtue of his being an apostle, does not get 


278 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


rid of the difficulty; for then the being an apostle constitutes 
the virtue and essence of investiture, and not the “ commis¬ 
sion” in Matthew, so constantly and elaborately harped upon. 
It was the one , or the other —will any high-Churcliman say 
which ? Suppose it was the commission in Matthew. Then 
Paulis entirely out; for it was never pretended, cannot be 
pretended, that Paul ever, by descent, ordination, or other¬ 
wise, had any thing to do with that commission , beyond what 
is common to all ministers. And suppose the original au¬ 
thority to ordain inheres in virtue of the being an apostle. 
Then where, or to whom , do we trace the commission or the 
succession ? To the eleven ? or to Judas ? or to the twelve, 
including Matthias ? or to the thirteen, including Paul ? or 
to the fourteen, including Barnabas? or to whom? What 
ride is laid down for us to go by ? 

These are questions that no man can answer, without totally 
uprooting the doctrine of apostolic succession, either in one 
way or another. 

To say that Paul preached in virtue of his being an apostle , 
displaces the commission in Matthew as the only apostolic 
commission. And, moreover, it puts Paul in a very ridicu¬ 
lous attitude before the apostles at Jerusalem, where he was 
entirely unable to make his fellow-apostles believe he had 
any such commission. They repudiated him totally until his 
friend Barnabas interceded for him, and pleaded in his be¬ 
half. 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


279 


» 


CHAPTER VII. 

A WICKED BISHOP CAN NEITHER BE RETAINED NOR 

EXCOMMUNICATED. 

Another difficulty of prelacy is, that it places the Church 
in a position where it can neither excommunicate a bishop, 
nor fail to excommunicate him, in circumstances that may, 
and sometimes do, occur. 

A bishop is invested personally with the Divine unction, or 
ordaining power. It is a Divine investment coming to the 
man, through an official channel, from Christ. It is, how¬ 
ever, just as Divine and just as personal as if it had been 
communicated by Christ, in person, directly. Now, it is 
simply absurd to say that human persons can abrogate or dis¬ 
annul a Divine investiture. If the episcopal function inheres 
in the man personally by Divine law, then it remains with 
him until the Divine hand takes it away by death or other¬ 
wise. 

Could human persons have divested Paul or Peter of his 
authority to preach ? Then the question is settled; for all 
the successors stand in the same attitude, so far as the invest¬ 
ment is concerned. It is a Divine investment. 

This difficulty has been most signally illustrated recently 
by the Protestant Episcopal Church. A bishop was proved 
to be guilty of gross and wicked licentiousness. But what 
could the Church do? He was a bishop by Divine invest- 


280 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


ment. His office could not be taken away from him, because 
men could not wield the Divine arm. 

And so he continues to be a bishop. He is still a vice¬ 
gerent of Christ, a chief minister of the gospel, a man of 
God. He is also a servant of sin, a wicked man, an enemy 
of Christ, under the curse of his wrath, a child of the devil. 

All this is true—must be true, or prelacy must give way. 
I only speak of matters of record. 

Another bishop became a heretic, denied the faith, re¬ 
nounced Christianity, and ran after Romanism, the mother of 
harlots. He is now no longer a Christian; and if not a 
Christian, he cannot be a Christian bishop; so he must be, 
and consequently is, excommunicated. 

This act of excommunication violates the law of God, how¬ 
ever ; for that law declares, as distinctively as though it were 
written on his forehead, that that man, identically and per¬ 
sonally, is Divinely invested with the functions of a bishop. 
It is as plain, though perhaps not as wicked, a violation of 
God’s law, to deprive him of his Divinely invested bishopric, 
as to deprive him of any other Divine investment, his limbs 
or his life. The investment was his by Divine law. 

And in the other case, the omission to excommunicate the 
convicted sinner-bishop was a plain violation of the Divine 
law; for that law savs all Christians shall withdraw from 
every brother that walketh disorderly—that is, excommuni¬ 
cate him. u But if he neglect to hear the Church, let him 
be to thee as a heathen man and a publican.” “I wrote 
unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators. 
Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked 
person.” 

Hence, it is palpable and conclusive that in any such like 
eases as the above, we are obliged to violate the plain man¬ 
dates of God, go which way we may, or though we stand still. 

High-Churchmen have never been able to settle among 


TIIE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


281 


themselves the question whether the Church has or has not 
the power, under any circumstances, to excommunicate a 
bishop. Excommunication, for any cause whatever, comes in 
direct conflict with the doctrine of a Divine infallible inves¬ 
titure of a Divine function which prelacy supposes to inhere 
in a bishop. 

The Bible plainly teaches that there are false Christians, 
false ministers, false prophets, false apostles; and it plainly 
directs, that from all such the Church and all Christians shall 
withdraw themselves. And yet, “ once a bishop always a 
bishop,” is a doctrine inseparable from that of the apostolic 
succession. 

And, moreover, the idea is not only strange, but abhorrent 
to plain, simple Bible Christians, that a wicked man, because 
some other man, perhaps himself as wicked, performed a cer¬ 
tain ceremony upon his head, using certain words and mani¬ 
pulations, is constituted an infallible Divine channel for the 
transmission of God’s grace and sacramental virtue to a sin¬ 
ner, that thereby he may become a Christian saved by Christ. 
The naked idea, apart from the grave and apparently sage- 
like and ministerial drapery thrown around it, is absolutely 
ridiculous. It violates the Holy Scriptures in a hundred 
places. 


282 


TIIE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

ORIGIN OF EPISCOPACY. 

■#* 

It lias been shown that, so far as the world is informed, 
in the days of the apostles there was nothing that could be 
called episcopacy in the government of the Churches, beyond 
the general superintendence of the apostles. It has also 
been seen that these functions of control were necessary in the 
first planting of Christianity, and that they were bestowed 
personally upon the apostles, and ceased with their lives; for 
they were personally vested in those apostles, and were in 
their nature not negotiable or transferable. 

Then how did episcopacy come about ? In the most natu¬ 
ral and simple way conceivable. 

Christianity commenced in the cities and large towns. By 
degrees it worked its way into the country and small towns, 
principally by the city Churches branching off and sending 
ministers into those places to superintend such Churches. 
Thus Jerusalem, Antioch, Ephesus, and Corinth, became as 
many centres of operation. They were the chief points of 
effort and influence for the extension of Church operations in 
their respective neighborhoods round about. 

The pastors, and converts, and ministers, of these and other 
Churches at important points, doubtless followed the example of 
the apostles, prompted by a zeal for religion, planted Churches 
wherever they could, and appointed suitable persons to preach 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


283 


and superintend their affairs. And so there became, natu¬ 
rally, a parent Church, and subordinate branches thereof, 
more or less depending upon it for support, advice, and assist¬ 
ance. The country and village Churches owed a filial relation 
to the city Church from which they sprang. The distresses 
and persecutions to which these Churches were subject drew 
these lines of compact closer and closer. The parent Church 
was deservedly the object of respect. It was founded proba¬ 
bly by one of the apostles, and was still in the hands of one 
of his successors, but one or two removes from him. This 
relation between one central and several surrounding Churches 
would naturally lead to a delegated or other sort of supervi¬ 
sory care by the parent Church over the others. And this is 
episcopacy. 

That in process of years it became very much corrupted— 
that what was at first a matter of Christian courtesy and re¬ 
ciprocal benefit, became a matter of lordly right and high-toned 
episcopal rule—is abundantly tested by the history of the 
Church in those times. It finally led on to a grand central¬ 
ized pontifical sway, as unlike primitive Christianity in form 
as it was and is injurious to its spirit and temper. 

Now there is nothing, absolutely nothing, so far as I have 
been able to see, in any thing which claims to be Church his¬ 
tory, which contradicts or renders at all improbable this view 
of the origin of episcopacy. Some respectable writers, where 
early training and later prepossessions have led them towards 
high episcopal notions, have in some few instances expressed 
a doubt of this hypothesis; but not one has written any 
historic fact which is irreconcilable therewith. 

And, on the other hand, the highest and best historic authori¬ 
ties all take this view of it. 

For a long time there was in the Church much of real 
episcopacy, before it acquired a distinctive name or became a 
distinctive and settled branch of ministerial labor. The pas- 


284 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


tor was the bishop. This is parochial episcopacy, and is as old 
as the Church is. And when a central or parent Church 
would send a minister to look over, advise, and assist neigh¬ 
boring Churches, it was still called episcopacy. In process of 
years this supervisory or superintending episcopacy became 
very general. And though it was at first very beneficial, in 
time, as the Church became corrupt, it produced great spiritual 
disasters. 

This view of episcopacy must be correct, from the following 
consideration : 

“A compendious ecclesiastical history, from the earliest 
period to the present time, by the Rev. William Palmer, M. 
A., of Worcester College, Oxford, (England,) with a preface 
and notes by an American editor,” supposed to be Bishop 
Whittingham, is a small history, compiled with the express 
view of sustaining the high-Church pretensions. It is 
a u Church book” of so rare qualities that it is bound 
usually with Hobart’s Apology, and called u The Churchman 
Armed.” 

From this book we learn a few historic facts, which, though 
perhaps not entirely accurate, arc as nearly so as the defective 
early records will allow us to look for. These facts utterly, 
at a blow, destroy the notion of prelacy in early times, and 
establish the opposing hypothesis. I prefer quoting from 
standard high-Church authority when it can conveniently be 
done, though the same facts could be brought from other 
quarters. 

At page 85 we learn that the council of Nice was the first 
ecumenical council; that it assembled in A. D. 325, and that 
three hundred and eighteen bishops attended it. 

At page 88 we learn that the emperor called a council of 
“the bishops of the west to the number of four hundred ,” 
in the year A. D. 359. The western Church at that time 
embraced less than half of the entire Church. 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


285 


On page 44 we learn that a general council was held in the 
year 451, at which six hundred and thirty bishops attended. 
To recapitulate : 

In 325 there were three hundred and eighteen bishops 
present. In the year 359 the western Church alone assem¬ 
bled four hundred bishops ; and in 451 we have six hundred 
and thirty bishops present at one place. 

Now, considering that at that time the conveniences of 
travelling were so deficient that it had mostly to be done on 
foot, and that the Church was spread over considerable 
portions of country, many of the bishops having to travel a 
thousand miles and more, it could hardly be supposed that 
over half the entire number of bishops could be got together 
at once. We are then to believe, that in the year 325 there 
were in the Christian Church about six hundred bishops. In 
359 the western Church alone must have contained seven or 
eight hundred, and in 451 the whole Church must have con¬ 
tained eleven or twelve hundred bishops! 

This, if it were intended for romance, understanding 
bishops in the prelatical sense, would be considered frantic 
wildness; regarding it as sober truth, it falls so far below the 
standard of reasonable probability, as to appear to a reasonable 
man ridiculous. 

What was the extent of the Church in the middle of the 
fifth century, or in the early or middle part of the fourth ? 
When had the Church, in any age, a thousand bishops? 
When had it the half, the quarter of that number? IIow 
many Christian bishops are there now on earth, with all the 
Church’s increase since the years 300 or 400 ? 

In the Methodist Church in the United States there are 
over a hundred thousand members to a bishop. According 
to this ratio, in the fifth century there were in the Church 
over a hundred millions of Episcopalians. The ratio of mem¬ 
bers to a bishop in the Protestant Episcopal Church in this 


286 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


country is about one to every four thousand three hundred. 
According to this ratio, there must have been, most probably, 
as early as the fifth century, in Episcopal Churches from four 
to five millions of members. Either supposition is far too 
wild and visionary for a dream. 

And yet the correctness of the historic statement can be 
accounted for in the simplest and easiest way imaginable. Let 
the term “ bishop” be understood as Jerome says it was 
understood in those days—pastors of Churches—and the 
matter is perfectly plain. The following remark from that 
celebrated and learned divine is in addition to what has been 
already quoted from him : 

“Our intention in these remarks is to show that among the 
ancients, presbyters and bishops were the very same; but by 
little and little, that the plants of dissension might be plucked 
up, the whole concern was devolved upon an individual.” 

That is, the entire charge of the Church devolved on the 
pastor. Again, immediately following : 

“As the presbyters, therefore, know that they are subject, 
by the custom of the Church, to him who is set over them, 
so let the bishops know that they are greater than presbyters 
more by custom than by any appointment of Christ.”—Ste¬ 
vens’s Church Polity, p. 56. 

St. Augustin in the same age speaks of bishops in the 
same way; and says expressly that his superiority over the 
presbyter was not a Divine, but a mere Church regulation. 
(See Jewell’s Defence, p. 122.) 

But this is by no means the greatest difficulty to be sur¬ 
mounted on this particular point. 

The learned Du Pin gives a catalogue of six hundred and 
ninety bishops in the ancient Church in Africa. 

Sclioene says that in the time of Augustin there were nine 
hundred bishops in Africa. And iVugustin himself says that 
in his day there were in Africa nine hundred, and twenty 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


287 


bishops. (Coleman’s Primitive Church, p. 208.) And also 
that “ in a very small district there were about live hundred 
bishops.”—Brown’s Letters to Dr. Pusey, p. 56. 

Now, if these were diocesan bishops, according to the apos¬ 
tolic succession doctrine, and not mere pastors, then, accord¬ 
ing to the proportion of Christians in Africa to those in all 
Christendom, and the probable ratio of the number of mem¬ 
bers of Churches to a bishop, there must have been some two 
or three hundred millions of Episcopalians then in the entire 
Church. These statements are quoted by Coleman from the 
New York Evangelist of 1843, p. 182. 

How is it possible that men can claim that in the sixth cen¬ 
tury there were about two or three thousand diocesan bishops 
in the Church ! Then, with the known increase since, there 
should be at the present time a hundred-fold more bishops 
than there are, and a greater number of members of Episco¬ 
pal churches than there are human beings on the face of the 
earth twice told. The notion carries us into some other regions 
far beyond the ridiculous. 


288 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


CHAPTER IX. 

ORIGIN or THE CHURCH OP ENGLAND. 

The doctrine of prelacy commenced in the Church of Eng¬ 
land about the beginning of the seventeenth century. The 
Church of England was organized upon improper principles, 
and its early ministers had peculiar and powerful difficulties 
to contend with. Nor have these disadvantages been over¬ 
come to the present day. 

In the forepart of the reign of Henry VIII., and pre¬ 
viously, the Church of England had not been heard of. A 
part of the Roman Catholic Church was in England, and had 
been for nearly a thousand years. But in England the Rom¬ 
ish Church was in no respect dissimilar to the same thing 
in any other countries. Henry was a proud, ambitious, bad 
man. At first he resisted the principles of Luther and the 
other Reformers most vehemently, and wrote a small book 
against the principles of the Reformation and in favor of the 
Papacy, as a reward for which Pope Leo X. conferred upon 
him the honorary title of “ Defender of the Faith.” 

But in process of a few years Henry became dissatisfied 
with his wife, who was several years older than himself, and 
became enamored of the beautiful and accomplished Anne 
Boleyn. He applied to his friend the Pope for a divorce. 
But the relation between Catharine, his wife, and Charles V., 
Emperor of Germany, made it impolitic for the Pope to 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


289 


grant the request, and delayed the matter till Henry became 
impatient of delay ; and finally, being determined to effect his 
purpose in some way, Cranmer suggested, or rather advised, 
that the King should be divorced without the decree of the 
Pope. 

The plan was instantly seized upon, and the divorce was 
effected. But when the thing came to be looked into, the 
desperate measures of Henry had not only divorced him from 
his wife, but had also, as a consequence, divorced the English 
Church from the Church of Borne. 

The condition and progress of the Reformation at this par¬ 
ticular moment, though so hated and opposed by Henry, made 
it a pretext quite apropos. Many of the English Chris¬ 
tians were warmly in favor of the Reformation, and Henry 
found it exceedingly convenient to make a virtue of necessity, 
and declare for the Reformation. He did so; and at the 
same time declared himself the head of the Church. 

Mosheim, the great ecclesiastical historian, says: “ It is 
true that from the time of Henry VIII. the kings of Eng¬ 
land consider themselves as supreme heads of the Church; 
and that in relation to its spiritual as well as its temporal con¬ 
cerns; and it is plain enough that on the strength of this 
important title, both Henry VIII. and his son Edward assumed 
an extensive authority and jurisdiction in the Church, and 
looked upon this spiritual power as equal to that which had 
been unworthily enjoyed by the Roman pontiff.”—Ecclesias¬ 
tical History, vol. iii., p. 304. 

This is the first instance, in the history of the Church, of a 
layman, without any pretence to ministerial orders, exercising 
the highest functions of episcopacy. The anomaly, strange 
and unchristian as it is, remains in the Church of England to 
this day. 

This strange and unnatural state of things has given riso 
to many difficulties which have not been entirely confined to 
13 


290 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


the English Church. The supreme bishop was a layman. 
Elizabeth, in whose reign the English Church was finally es¬ 
tablished as a Protestant Church, relaxed her episcopal func¬ 
tions—that is, the exercise of them—but the clergy and 
Church were in difficulty. They were pious men, and desired 
to maintain the discipline and polity of the Church in a way 
which would in some sort conform to the past and early his¬ 
tory thereof, and at the same time be good and loyal subjects 
of the crown. They are in these difficulties still. 

u The truth of the matter is plainly this, that the ecclesias¬ 
tical polity in England has never acquired a stable and consist¬ 
ent form, nor been reduced to clear and certain principles. 
It has rather been carried on and administered by ancient cus¬ 
toms and precedent, than defined and fixed by any regular 
system of laws and institutions.”—Mosheim, vol. iii., p. 305. 

One of the means used by the Pope and his minions to re¬ 
strain the reformers, was the declaration that the orders of 
their ministry were defective, because they had not descended 
in an unbroken chain from the Church , as they called their 
hierarchy. This question of the regular descent of orders 
was for a long time unnoticed by the English divines entirely. 
They were satisfied with their true faith and piety, and the 
presence and influence of the Holy Ghost among them, and 
left the legendary question of the traditions of Christianity 
to Papists. 

But after the Reformation became established in England, 
and they had leisure for reflection, they were annoyed by the 
lay-episcopacy of their Church government. Mosheim says : 

“ It was not an easy matter to determine in what hands 
the power of deciding affairs of a religious nature was to be 
lodged: it was no less difficult to fix the form of ecclesiasti¬ 
cal government in which this power was to be administered. 
Many vehement disputes were kindled on this subject, which 
neither the lapse of time, nor the efforts of human wisdom, 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


291 


have been able to bring to an amicable issue.”—Ecclesiastical 
History, vol. iii., p. 305. 

The question of the regular succession, by Divine right, of 
the crown, was, of course, a prominent question in England; 
and the intimate relation between, nay, the oneness of the 
crown and the episcopacy, furnished the very easiest means 
imaginable for a transfer of the notion of succession in its 
application to the latter. Meanwhile, the Popish writers were 
constantly goading the reformers with their lack of ministerial 
authority, arising from their want of episcopal ordinations in 
an unbroken line. High episcopal rule was, of course, a 
prominent notion of Popery. The English clergy who were 
inclined to these lofty notions of ecclesiastical prerogative, could 
not, of course, acknowledge the necessity of successive ordi¬ 
nations, unless they could in some plausiblo degree establish 
the fact in their Church. 

This feeling had privately gained some considerable eleva¬ 
tion when in 1588 Bishop Bancroft pretty clearly intimated 
it in public. The notion met decided disfavor except with a 
few. And in the hands of Bancroft, the notion can, perhaps, 
not more than be said to have been intimated. 

William Laud, who afterwards became archbishop, entered 
the ministry about twenty years after the sermon of Bancroft, 
above alluded to, was preached. Laud was a man of indomi¬ 
table energy and perseverance, a great bigot, very supersti¬ 
tious, and a great tyrant. At a very early period in his 
ministry, he boldly brought forward, in a sermon in the uni¬ 
versity of Oxford, the doctrine that a succession of episcopal 
orders was as necessary in the Church as the regular descent 
of the crown was in the civil power. 

This bold avowal of the new doctrine gave great offence; 
so much so that the university passed a formal censure and 
repudiation of it. But Laud was not a man to be put down 
so easily. He gained favor with James, the reigning sove- 


292 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


reign, attained to the see of Canterbury, and planted in the 
English Church, principles of prerogative and priestly power, 
which in all likelihood will not be eradicated until they, with 
those who maintain them, shall find a down-hill passway into 
full Popery. 

When the Roman Catholic bigot and despot, King James 
II., abdicated the throne and fled from his country in 1688, 
the great non-juror question arose, which rested itself mainly 
on the unpopular principles of Laud. 

Sancroft, the archbishop of Canterbury, and seven other 
bishops, thought they could not adhere to the new king, 
William III., and, for refusing to swear allegiance, were de¬ 
prived of their offices and their sees. 

“ The deposed bishops and clergy,” says Mosheim, u formed 
a new episcopal Church, which differed in certain points of 
doctrine and certain circumstances of public worship from the 
established Church of England. This new religious commu¬ 
nity were denominated Nonjurors, on account of their refus¬ 
ing to take the oath of allegiance, and were also called the 
high Church, on account of the high notions they entertained 
of the dignity and power of the Church, and the extent they 
gave to its prerogatives and jurisdiction. Those, on the other 
hand, who disapproved of this course, who distinguished them¬ 
selves by their charity and moderation towards dissenters, and 
were less ardent in extending the limits of ecclesiastical 
authority, were denominated low Churchmen.”—Ecclesiastical 
History, vol. iv., pp. Ill, 112. 

Here we have the origin of “ High Church.” It was and 
still is a secession from the Church of England on account 
of high notions of ecclesiastical power. Imbibing and fol¬ 
lowing the doctrine of succession, the seceders followed their 
dethroned monarch; and acting upon the same principles in 
the Church, they held to a regular descent of authority, denied 
the validity of orders not strictly episcopal, and claimed the 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 293 

same prerogatives in the one case that they acknowledged in 
the other. 

This schism in the Church remains to this day. 

The principles embraced in this controversy were regarded 
as highly important, and called forth the sentiments of the 
first men in the Church. 

Our limits will only allow of a bare notice of the opinions 
of some of her first men on the subject. In the thirteenth 
year of Elizabeth the parliament passed a law, u by which the 
ordinations of the foreign Reformed Churches were declared 
valid, and those that had no other orders were made of the 
same capacity with others who enjoy anyplace in the ministry 
within England, merely on their subscribing the articles.”— 
Brown’s Letters to Dr. Pusey, page 31. 

Lord Bacon says to King James : u I for my part do con¬ 
fess that in revolving the Scriptures, I could never find but 
that God had left the like liberty to the Church government 
as he had done to the civil government, to be varied according 
to time, and place, and accidents. The substance of doctrine 
is immutable; and so are the general rules of government; 
but for rites and ceremonies, and for the particular hierarchies, 
policies, and disciplines of Churches, they may be left at 
large.”—Brown’s Letters, page 36. 

Bishop Stillingfleet, in his Irenicum, chapter 8, part 2, 
gives us the most conclusive evidence that human testimony 
is capable of furnishing, that the great body of the Church, 
at and long after its formation, was presbyterial in its views 
of Church government; that is, that it was esteemed that ordi¬ 
nation by a bishop, considered as superior to presbyters, was 
not necessary to the being of the Church, the proper admin¬ 
istration of the ordinances, or the ordaining of other ministers. 
And he gives the names of many of the most learned and 
prominent of the clergy who maintained this view. Among 
the names he mentions arc the following: Archbishops Cranmer 


294 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


and Whitgift, Bishop Bridges, Dr. Low, Hooker, King 
James, Sutcliff, Hales, Chillingworth, Chemnitius, Zanchy, 
Peter Molin, Fugevil, Blondell, Bochartus, Amyraldus, Gro- 
tius, Lord Bacon, The Augustin Confession, Melancthon, 
Articuli Smalcaldici, Prince of Anhalt, Hyperius, Hernni- 
gues, Calvin, Beza, Bishop Jewell,. Fulke, Field, Downham, 
Bancroft, Manton, Andrews, Saravia, Francis Mason, etc. 

In fact, this must have been the doctrine of the Reformers, 
because it is an essential principle of the Reformation itself, 
as we will see in a future chapter. 

Bishop Burnet expressly holds that ordination at all is not 
absolutely necessary to the administration of the sacraments, 
the preaching of the word, the proper government of the 
Church, or the ordaining of ministers, in such places and 
under such circumstances as will not admit of regular ordina¬ 
tion. He holds that in such cases lay ordination is justifiable 
and proper. 

Bishop Tillotson, u that great prelate,” as Bishop Burnet 
calls him, carefully examined and affirmed this doctrine; as 
did also Bishop Stillingfleet. The doctrine was also affirmed 
by the Bishops of Duresme, St. David's, and Westminster, 
and by Drs. Tresham, Cox, Leighton, Crawford, Symmons, 
Redmayn, and Robertson. This doctrine was affirmed, too, 
not merely hypothetically, but in reference to cases then be¬ 
fore the Church. (See Burnet's Collection of Records, part 
I., book iii., No. 21.) 

It was also declared by both houses of parliament in 1543, 
that priests and bishops are, by God's law, one and the same; 
and that the powers of ordination and excommunication be¬ 
long equally to both. 

Archbishop Usher replied to Charles I., in answer to the 
royal inquiry, that presbyters did ordain. 

Bishop Stillingfleet says : It is acknowledged by the stout¬ 
est champions of episcopacy, before those late unhappy divi- 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


295 


sions, that ordinations performed by presbyters, in case of 
necessity, are valid. 

Bishop Forbes says: “ Presbyters have by Divine right 
the power of ordaining as well as of preaching and bap¬ 
tizing.” 

Lord High Chancellor King says: “As for ordinations, I 
find clearer proofs of presbyters ordaining than of their 
administering the Lord’s Supper.” 

These things show conclusively that the English Church, 
since the Deformation, did not uniformly pretend to endeavor 
to confine ordinations to bishops, much less to preserve a suc¬ 
cession of ordinations in bishops as the vitality of the Church. 


296 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


CHAPTER X. 

HOW CAN THE SUCCESSION PASS THROUGH WICKED 

HANDS ? 

It is notoriously known and acknowledged on all hands 
that the succession of ordinations, if it has come down in an 
uninterrupted chain from the apostles to our day, must 
have passed through the hands of many of as wicked men as 
ever lived. During that dismal period usually denominated 
by historians the “Dark Ages,” the Church presented a 
picture of wickedness, crime, infamy, and moral putridity 
and corruption, as dark as that which is to be found on any 
page of the world’s history. Sees of the highest dignity 
were oftentimes openly transferred by treachery, fraud, vio¬ 
lence, bloodshed, simony, concubinage, and rapine. And the 
question arises, IIow can the sacramental virtue pass through 
the hands of these men and boys—for they were sometimes 
boys of ten and five years old—how can the essential vitality 
of the Church and the ministry pass pure and good through 
these hands ? 

The only answer to this question I have ever seen is that 
which is copied and handed round between Percival, Hook, 
Chapman, and others, and is found in all the high-Church 
writings which touch upon the point. It is this: the wick¬ 
edness of the person does not prevent or obstruct the dis¬ 
charge of official duty by him. 


TIIE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 297 

Bishop ITobart says, Churchman Armed, page 142 : 

11 The acts of a wicked magistrate, the decisions of a cor¬ 
rupt judge, are valid, because of his commission. The acts 
of our unholy ministers of the Church are valid for the same 
reason, because of their commission.” 

But let us see how far these cases are parallel, and then wo 
will see how far the illustration holds good. Immoralities, to 
a certain extent, in a judge, will not, and to an extent 
beyond that they will, work as a nullity of his official acts. 
Immorality in a judge or magistrate which goes to the extent 
of a disqualification for office, does, or ought to, nullify his 
official acts. 

But the cases are by no means parallel, for another reason. 
In what sense is the term “valid” used? It means, it is pre¬ 
sumed, of legal binding force. But binding upon whom? 
They may be binding as to the Church, and the bishop, and 
the person ordained. But that is not the question. The ques¬ 
tion is, Is the act binding upon Christ ? Jesus Christ binds 
himself to confer blessings in pursuance of his promises. 
Now, do his promises say that the ministrations of a wicked 
man will be recognized by him, and that in and through them 
he will confer his blessings ? Or do his promises say any 
thing about the ministry of wicked men ? 

Now, the expressions of Christ are abundant in the Scrip¬ 
tures, that he will not, under any circumstances, bo bound by 
the acts of wicked men as his ministers: that he will not own 
their acts, or have any thing whatever to do with either the 
men or their acts, except to issue his unceasing curses and 
displeasure upon them. 

A wicked bishop, believed to be a holy man by the Church, 
may act as the officer of the Church in performing ordination, 
and it is binding upon the man and the Church, for the reason 
that they entered into the arrangement in good faith. The 
ordination being a matter between the Church and the minis- 
13* 


298 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


ter—as is explained in our chapter on ordination—the virtue 
of ordination not consisting in any vitality or sacramental 
virtue personal in the bishop, and which is conferred by the 
bishop personally upon the minister in the act of ordination, 
it becomes a valid ordination, though the bishop does not work 
the validity into the matter. The ordination is valid, if valid 
at all, not because of any thing personally inherent in the 
bishop, as the vicar of Christ, which produced the validity, 
but because of the good faith in which the Church and the 
minister to be ordained entered into the matter. The ordained 
minister is the minister of Christ, not of the bishop. 

Let us see if an ordination is absolutely valid, u because of 
the commission” of the bishop. Suppose a man goes to a 
validly-ordained bishop and offers him a thousand dollars for 
ordination, and he performs the ceremony. Is the man a 
“ valid ” bishop? Or, suppose another goes with a revolver, 
and without much ceremony demands the performance of the 
ceremony of ordination, and procures it. Is he a “ bishop ?” 

The “commission” was certainly not wanting. But what 
Christian man will say that in either case there is an ordina¬ 
tion recognized by Jesus Christ ? 

Gentlemen must be held to their own arguments. The 
doctrine of the validity of orders depending entirely upon the 
u commission” of the bishop—meaning a commission from 
Christ—supposes the absurdity which has been hereinbefore 
refuted: that a vital current of something , coming from 
Christ, descends through the persons of bishops, and is com¬ 
municable by the pronunciation of certain words and the 
performance of certain manipulations upon another person. 

But how can this Divine vitality pass through wicked 
hands ? If it does, and Christ has any thing to do with it, it 
is expressly in opposition to the Scriptures in a hundred 
places. The third chapter of 1 Timothy tells us what a 
bishop must be —that is, one of Christ’s bishops. According 


TIIE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


299 


to tlais plan of conferring “valid” orders by virtue of per¬ 
sonal “ commission/' we may have a Christian Church and 
ministry without a Christian in it! 

Suppose a kennel of infidels were in some way to procure 
ordination for one of their number to the presbyterate or to 
the bishopric. The clan then immediately becomes a Christian 
Church. And so Christianity and infidelity are identical. 

It is not within the realms of logic to evade the force of 
this argument. 

Again, it is attempted to be held that a valid ministry 
may exist in the persons of wicked men from the case of 
Judas, whom they say was both an apostle and a devil under 
the eye of the Saviour. So a word or two must be said about 
Judas and his successors. 

The case of Judas is totally misapprehended. If it could 
be shown that Judas acted as a minister of Jesus Christ 
while he was a traitor, and that the Saviour recognized his 
acts of ministry after he betrayed his Lord, the case would be 
different. But what are the facts ? Was Judas a bishop? 
Was he a minister of the gospel? Was he ever authorized 
to preach the gospel, or to ordain others to do so ? Why, the 
ministry of the gospel was not authorized to he preached in 
the lifetime of Judas. Judas Iscariot was dead before the 
apostolic commission was given. Judas, in all probability, 
never heard of a gospel or its ministry. lie did not live in 
the gospel dispensation. Christ had neither shed his blood 
for sinners, nor had he risen from the dead until after the 
death of Judas. Whatever else maybe said of this celebrated 
sinner, this much must be said, that he lived and died before 
the gospel ministry began. 

This argument cannot be answered by saying that the Sa¬ 
viour sent the twelve apostles forth to preach, in his lifetime, 
with Judas among them. This is very true. But what the 
character of that preaching was, we do not certainly know. 


300 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


It was probably a forewarning of the forthcoming of the gos* 
pel. The gospel, in its full development, the atonement, the 
crucified and risen Saviour, the salvation by Jesus Christ 
based upon his death and resurrection, could not, in the na¬ 
ture of the case, be preached until after the death of Christ. 
The religious preaching before this looked forward to these 
events. The twelve apostles, however, did not fully preach 
these things, even prospectively, for they did not clearly un¬ 
derstand them. They were hard to convince of his resurrec¬ 
tion, even after it took place. The Christian dispensation 
commenced, not at the birth but at the death of Jesus Christ. 
His death and resurrection form the corner-stone of Chris¬ 
tianity. 

And again. Suppose for a single moment that Judas was 
a Christian apostle in the sense of a bishop. Then his u com¬ 
mission” authorized him to ordain, and a chain of ordinations 
descending from him would be equally valid with that coming 
from John or Peter. Will that do? Is the Christianity of 
Judas u valid” Christianity? Those who claim him as a valid 
ordainer of Christian bishops cannot refuse to consider them¬ 
selves, and be considered, as his successors ! 

Will this do ? It is the argument with which prelatical 
writers furnish us. 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


301 


CHAPTER XI. 

THE ATTEMPT TO AVOID HOME. 

The doctrine has lately been set on foot that the apostolic 
succession can be so traced as to avoid the Romish Church 
entirely, and thus get rid of the abominable corruptions and 
wickedness that are well known to lie all along the history of 
the papal hierarchy. This has been deemed to he important 
by the advocates of succession, and the best talent of the 
party has been engaged in its execution. 

They attempt to show that a Church was planted at a very 
early day in Lyons, in ancient G-aul, now France. Then they 
have some historic fables that at a very early day it was intro¬ 
duced among the savages of Britain; that it was preserved in 
that island, in the see of Canterbury, until it was transferred 
to the United States a few years ago. 

I see no sort of necessity for making any argument with 
higli-Churchmen on this point; and will, therefore, so far 
as this argument is concerned, grant all that is claimed. It 
is, then, granted that all these dreams and fables are history. 
We will, if any high-Churchman chooses, admit the tale of 
romance respecting St. Paul’s visit to England; that he 
planted the gospel, and ordained a u bishop” there. We ad¬ 
mit any thing on this point that is asked for. And now, sup¬ 
posing all these dreams of romance and visions of fancy to be 
good history, we have two observations to make. 

First. There was a reformation of the Church in the 


302 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


sixteenth century, by which Protestants broke off from the 
Romish communion, and set up a Christian Church. Pre¬ 
vious to the Reformation, the whole of Christianity was under 
the dominion of the Church of Rome, except, perhaps, a 
handful of persecuted refugee Christians, here and there, in 
the mountains and forests of France, Germany, and Switzer¬ 
land. But all of known, public, organized Christianity in 
the world was for a whole thousand years under the Romish 
dominion, except the oriental Churches, from which their 
succession could not have been derived. 

These facts, it is presumed, are admitted by every one who 
ever heard of the Church's history. Then a part of the 
Romish Church was in Africa, part in Germany, part in 
Switzerland, in France, in England, Scotland, etc., etc. 
What matters it how early the Church was planted in Eng¬ 
land, or by whom ? It is well known that since the visit of 
Augustin to that country, in A. I). 596, up to the declaration 
of the independence of the Church by Henry VIII., in 1531, 
a period of 935 years, the only organized Church in the 
island of Great Britain was a regular Roman Catholic Church. 
A part of the Church of Rome was in France, part of it in 
Germany, part in England, part in Italy, etc., etc. There 
was a Church in England, every one admits, since A. I). 
596; but was it not a Romish Church ? It is not, surely it 
is not—as the above high-Church argument seems to suppose 
—necessary for a Church of Rome to be in the city of Rome. 
D'Aubigne says, vol. v., Hist. Ref., p. 189, “ There was 
more Romish faith in London than in the Vatican." And 
as to the corruptions of Rome, it is not known that they 
were ever circumscribed by any geographical boundaries, or 
by any other kind of boundaries. 

It is not known, therefore, what is sought to be gained 
by proving an early plantation of a Christian Church in 
Britain, and its continuance there. How is it attempted to 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


303 


be made out that these circumstances remove the English 
Church from the blackness and darkness of Romish corrup¬ 
tion ? 

But, secondly. The reason for the attempt to separate 
English and American ordinations from those of the Romish 
Church is not understood. For what purpose is it attempted 
to set up a line of ordinations separate and apart from and 
independent of Rome? We only want high-Churchmen to 
be consistent with themselves. Are Romish ordinations in¬ 
valid ? What invalidates them ? The high-Church doctrine 
is, that ordinations are valid u because of the commission” of 
the ordaining bishop, irrespective of any morality or immoral¬ 
ity, piety or impiety, in the bishop personally. Then what 
invalidates Romish ordinations ? And if they are not in¬ 
invalid, then are they not as good as validity can make them ? 
And then why this anxious effort to make history out of 
fables in order to get clear of them ? Have they a taint of 
illegality ? On what account, or for what reason ? 

Now, it is simply impossible for any objection to be sug¬ 
gested against the validity of Romish ordinations, considering 
that validity to be based on a succession of ordinations from 
the apostles, that will not lie with equal force against the 
validity of ordinations coming down in any other supposed 
channel. If personal immorality in the bishop works inva¬ 
lidity, then, in the nature as well as according to the facts 
of the case, we have an end of succession. If succession is 
not good in the Romish Church, then how can it be good in 
any other ? The thing is manifestly impossible. 

Moreover, it is well known to bo a settled principle in 
high-Churchism that the Romish ordinations are valid. 
Then why this incessant labor and effort to make up some 
sort of history that will show that English ordinations may be 
traced independent of Rome? Suppose it were done : what 
does it establish ? These are questions that no man can answer. 


304 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


CHAPTER XII. 

WIIAT ARE THE SUPPOSED ADVANTAGES OP SUCCESSION ? 

Mr. Macaulay, the celebrated historian, in a letter on 
this subject to Mr. Gladstone, an English high-Churchman, 
asks a question that has never been answered. He inquires, 
u What does the apostolic succession prove, supposing it to be 
proved and established V 9 Merely to prove the truth and ex¬ 
istence of the apostolic succession of itself proves nothing 
that need be proved, unless it can also be shown that the 
apostolic succession has some benefits or advantages attached 
to it, or in some way connected with it. Suppose the doctrine 
of the apostolic succession to be established. It is just the 
same as though it were not and could not be established, un¬ 
less some religious advantage stands connected with it. What 
does the apostolic succession prove ? 

The thing itself, of course, proves just as much, or as little, 
for high-Churchmen, for the Church of England, for the 
Protestant Episcopal Church, as it does, or ever did, for any 
other Churches which may be supposed to have been possessed 
of the Divine virtue. 

If non-prelatical Churches were to-day to acquire the suc¬ 
cession, what benefit would they acquire ? They would de¬ 
rive the same advantages which high-Churchists and Roman¬ 
ists derive from it—which is manifestly none. 

The ancient Arian Churches were episcopal, and had cer- 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


305 


tainly as good claims to succession as any Church could pos¬ 
sibly have in that day, and far better claims than any Church 
can possibly have at the present time, for they lived fifteen 
hundred years nearer to the apostles. Was the succession, 
if they had it—and they certainly had it if anybody had— 
of any benefit to them ? Did it protect them against misrule 
and theological error ? So far from this being the case, it was 
decided by a council of more than three hundred bishops, 
with Constantine at their head, then and there assembled, at 
the city of Nice — and that verdict has been uniformly af¬ 
firmed by the united voice of Christendom ever since — that 
the Arians taught, for the truth of God, the heresies of 
Satan. Their succession did not save them from the grossest 
infidelity. 

And has the succession done any more than this for the 
Roman Catholic establishment? Their claims to succession 
are acknowledged to be at the present time, and in all time 
past, as good as high-Churchists pretend to have. And what 
advantage—what spiritual help—what protection against error 
—what means of progress in pure religion—do the Romanists 
enjoy in consequence of the succession if they have it? 
Confessedly, none. The voice of Christendom is that Popery 
is a mass of religious corruption, and ecclesiastical putridity, 
and theological romance, and ministerial infamy, priestcraft, 
and oppression, such ak, a tithe of which, the world never 
saw beside. 

Then, what do successionists propose to do for other 
Churches ? What benefits, advantages, helps, do they pro¬ 
pose to confer upon others ? Can an answer be given to this 
question ? It is strange, it is unaccountable, it is marvel¬ 
lous, that this has never been attempted. 

The claim of high-Churchmen is, that they possess all the 
advantages and spiritual help which Christ intended to con¬ 
fer upon the world by means of a ministry and a Church. 


30G 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


They do not, by any means, merely claim to have some supe¬ 
rior advantages over and above those possessed by other 
Churches ) but that they have all these advantages, and that 
other so-called ministers and Churches have none. 

Now, it cannot be questioned that Christ intended that the 
institution of a Church and a ministry was in all time to come 
to operate in the world as means and instruments of religion 
and of salvation of a most powerful character. He promised 
to be with the ministry, and in the Church, in all time, to 
give them succor, guidance, and influence. And he has not in 
all the Bible promised to be anywhere else, in the world, out 
of the ministry and the hearts and assemblies of Christians 
to advance his cause. Nay, he has said that he need not be 
looked for, for he will not be found, elsewhere. 

And high-Churchmen claim to have all these helps and ad¬ 
vantages, if they claim for the succession any benefit. And 
if they do not claim for it any benefit, then it is useless to 
desire or seek after it, whether it be true or false. Let us 
pause a moment and look at this thing. 

High-Churchmen go to work in this great warfare against 
sin, wielding the implements of Almighty grace. There is no 
Church, no ministry, no sacraments, no Divine promises or 
Divine helps, outside of them. And who and what are they, 
as compared with other professing Christians ? Let us con¬ 
fine this inquiry for a moment to our own country. 

High-Churchmen compose less than half of the Protestant 
Episcopal Church in the United States. There are in the 
United States, according to the returns of 1854, over 
thirty-seven hundred and fifty thousand members of the 
different Churches, exclusive, of course, of Romanists. One 
hundred thousand of these are members of the Protestant 
Episcopal Church. Say one half of these are high-Church¬ 
men. Then we have in this country over three million seven 
hundred thousand professing Christians who repudiate the 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 307 

succession doctrine, against fifty thousand high-Churchists. 
The proportion is seventy-four to one. 

Now, is it not a burlesque upon common sense, is it not a 
burlesque upon the every-day observation of all men, is it 
not an insult to reason, to our eyes and our ears, to suppose 
that these things are true ? 

In this enlightened country, which claims to be a Christian 
country — in this land of Bibles, and churches, and gospel 
preaching, and professing Christians, and missionary enter¬ 
prise, and religious presses, and Sabbath-schools, and Sabbath 
days, which stands out and above and beyond any other on 
any page of the world’s history—in this country we have a 
email sect, in one of the smallest Churches in the land, com¬ 
prising one-seventy-fourth part of its professing Christians, 
which claims, par excellence , to be the Church, with the whole 
of the sum total of Christianity, with all the ministry, all the 
sacraments, all the Divine assistance, all the comfort of the Holy 
Spirit, all the right and title to the Christianity of the nation!!! 

The lexicographers have not furnished the world with the 
means of expressing that idea, fairly and fully, in English. 
Is there much modesty in the claim ? Fifty thousand Church 
members or less, with about seven or eight hundred ministers, 
affect to set up and excommunicate nearly four millions of 
Christians, with upwards of twenty-six thousand ministers! 
There are in the United States more than half as many 
non-prelatical ministers of the gospel as there are high- 
Church members, men, women, and children, “clergymen,” 
bishops, and all. 

But does this sect make up in piety what they lack in 
numbers? If they have all the religious advantages, they 
ought to have all the piety. But is this so ? Alas, it is 
feared that, in this examination, we are getting from bad to 
worse. 

It is not the province of the writer, nor of any other man, 


308 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


to judge of men's standing before God; nor is this an at¬ 
tempt to do any thing of the sort. We are examining into 
the probable truth of the doctrine of the apostolic succession, 
and the claims of its professors. And the Saviour has given 
us a rule which we are to use in all cases where it naturally 
applies itself, namely, By their fruits yE shall know 
them. This is a rule of common sense as well as of Divine 
appointment. 

Now, if, on examination, it shall turn out that these forty 
or fifty thousand high-Churchmen are, notwithstanding the 
smallness of their numbers, conspicuous and sterling ex¬ 
amples of piety, amidst gay, fashionable, worldly-minded 
Churches, though they be seventy or eighty times over the 
largest, it will go far to show that their claim to the exclu¬ 
sive benefits of God's grace is at least probable. But is this 
so f Have they all the piety in the land ? 

So far from it, it is as well and as notoriously known as 
that the sun shines upon the earth in the daytime, that the 
very reverse is the case. In the Protestant Episcopal Chufch 
itself, there is a very marked and apparent difference between 
the high and the low Church divisions. The latter will com¬ 
pare very favorably, in all the external appearances and 
apparent fruits of piety, with their fellow-Christians in any 
part of the country. Whilst, on the contrary, it is noto¬ 
riously known, that practical piety is not generally looked for 
among high-Churchmen of either sex. There are many noble 
and sterling exceptions to this rule; but for the most part— 
to say the very least that can possibly be said—for the most 
part, the common gayeties of life are as abundant among them 
as out in the wicked world. Card-playing, horse-racing, 
dancing, theatre-going, circus-going, betting, and drinking, 
are very common among high-Churchmen !!! 

Truth is self-sustaining. A proposition that will not sus¬ 
tain itself is not true. High-Churchmen are bound by the 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


309 


imperative laws of logic to prove their claims to the whole 
of the advantages God has vouchsafed to his Church and hi 3 
ministry, by exhibiting before the world an appropriate and 
corresponding degree of the fruits of those advantages. 
A tree is not the tree it is named, unless its fruit exhibit 
the evidences of sameness and identity. Every thing must 
exhibit the proper and appropriate fruits and evidences of its 
own nature and character. A Church which claims to be, 
par excellence , “ the Church,” above and over and beyond 
all other Churches, and at the same time exhibits itself 
in the lowest class of piety, furnishes the most conclusive 
evidence of its error, and challenges the commiseration and 
pity of a pious and benevolent people. 

To go into the battle-field of the Lord with the implements 
of Omnipotence in hand; with the sword of the Spirit and 
the shield of Almighty protection over you; with the blood¬ 
stained banner of certain victory leading you onward; with 
the cohorts of conquest flanking you on either hand, and the 
shouts of the redeemed resounding in the air with a cheering 
and deafening acclaim; and return with nothing, absolutely 
nothing, save the bare name of succession , is to make a bur¬ 
lesque of religion, is to reduce holy things to trickery and 
fables, is to boast of imbecility, is to wipe away all logical 
reasoning, is to turn the Church of God into a playhouse, and 
turn the great scheme of salvation by Jesus Christ into 
senseless ceremony and ball-room piety. By their fi'uits ye 
shall know them. 

And moreover, I have never known the public or private 
expression of opinion on the part of any man to the effect that 
succession, or connection with a succession Church, was of 
any specific or particular religious advantage to any person. 
They acknowledge the saving faith and evangelical piety of 
non-prelatical Christians. When brought to the test, they 
do not pretend to say otherwise than that any man’s chance 


310 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


for heaven is to be measured and reckoned by the measure of 
his personal piety and devotedness to God, irrespective of the 
real or supposed legality of the ordination of his minister. 
Then of what use is succession ? 

But at the same time that we have these concessions, we 
have the declarations of several high-Church writers—made 
in the heat of debate, when they are obliged to substitute 
declarations for arguments—to the effect that there is no sal¬ 
vation outside of the reception of the sacraments and of 
confirmation at the hands of a succession bishop. Their 
inconsistencies and self-contradictions are truly marvellous. 

It ought to be remarked, however, that the slightest intima¬ 
tions of any religious advantages resulting from the ministra¬ 
tions of succession bishops over and above those of other 
ministers, is never made, consistently or inconsistently, except 
in that flank of downright Puseyism, which borders so 
closely upon that it almost commingles with the territories 
of Rome. The doctrine is essentially Romish, for it is the 
doctrine of priest-forgiveness. To prepare a man for heaven 
is to forgive his sins. This, Christianity teaches, is done by 
Jesus Christ exclusively. Rome teaches that it is done by a 
“jpriest ” Prelacy teaches that it is done by a “ bishop 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


311 


CHAPTER XIII. 

SUCCESSION PROVES TOO MUCH, AND THEREFORE PROVES 

NOTHING. 

TnERE is another view of this subject, which appears abso¬ 
lutely distinctive of the succession scheme, and which can be 
fully stated in a moment. 

First. It is held by high-Churchmen that the doctrine is 
essential to the being of a Church and of a ministry. It is 
a fundamental Christian doctrine. It is the law of God , 
upon which the ministry and the Church are founded. 

Second. It is acknowledged by all Christians, and by none 
more readily than by high-Church Episcopalians, that an 
association of men claiming to be a Church of Christ, must 
set forth in their articles of religion, or creed, or confession 
of faith, or whatever their bond of compact may be called, 
all the acknowledged fundamental doctrines of Christianity. 
Without such a setting forth—whatever more might or might 
not be deemed necessary—no association of men can right¬ 
fully claim to be a Church of Christ. 

Third. The doctrine of apostolic succession is not, never 
was, the doctrine of any Church. It was never affirmed as a 
tenet, or a truth, or a doctrine of Christianity, by any eccle¬ 
siastical body claiming to be, or to act for or on behalf of, 
any Church. It is the doctrine—said to be— of individual 
persons, but not of any Church. 


312 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


Then it follows, of inevitable logical consequence, that 
there is not a Christian Church on earth. 

This is a short argument, but a conclusive one. The 
premises cannot be denied : the conclusion cannot be resisted. 

In all sober earnestness and honesty, I ask sober, thinking 
men to look at this argument. It lies in a nutshell. 

It is asserted on all hands, by the friends and foes of the 
doctrine of succession, that it is an essential, fundamental 
Christian doctrine, absolutely necessary to the being of a 
Church and a ministry, or it is nothing. 

Again. No proposition can be more self-evident in logic, 
or more universally assented to by all men, than the absolute 
necessity of a setting forth, in their articles of compact, on 
the part of any association of men claiming to be a Church, 
all such doctrines as are acknowledged to be vital or funda¬ 
mental to the being of a Church. This is a mere truism. 

Would an association of men be a Church, whose articles 
of compact did not acknowledge the Bible a revelation from 
God?—which did not set forth the doctrine of salvation by 
Jesus Christ?—which did not set forth the being of God ?— 
the fall of man ?—the death of Christ ?—or a future state of 
reward and punishment ? Then, if so, a board of town coun- 
cilmen may be called a Church—then a railroad company is a 
Church—then a justice’s court is a Church—a mercantile 
firm is a Church. 

High-Churchmen, as well as all other Christians, deny to 
this, that, and the other association, the characteristics of a 
Church, because they fail to acknowledge, or set forth, all the 
fundamental doctrines of Christianity, and upon no other 
ground. Men differ as to what doctrines are vital or funda¬ 
mental, and hence their differences of opinion on this point. 
But we are now testing this question upon the supposition of 
its being, as it is claimed, a fundamental doctrine of Chris¬ 
tianity. 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


313 


And we see that not one of the several associations of men 
on the earth, or which ever was on the earth, is or was a 
Christian Church, for not one of them does or ever did assert 
or set forth the doctrine of apostolic succession. 

If this is not demonstration, then I acknowledge that, to 
my mind, the rules of logic are loose and uncertain. 

This argument, together with several others in this work, 
was never, so far as I know or believe, attempted to be an¬ 
swered by any high-Church writer, or other person, in any 
way whatever. This may be, for aught I know, because they 
have not been brought forward before. So far as I am ap¬ 
prised, they have not been set forth previously, or, at least, 
until very recently. 

And if this argument cannot be met and set aside fairly, 
then it is absolutely silly, it is ridiculous, it is nonsense, for 
men to talk about a doctrine of apostolic succession. 


14 


314 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


CHAPTER XIV. 

AN ANALOGICAL ARGUMENT. 

It is argued in favor of succession, that its authenticity is 
proved in the same way in which the authenticity of the Bible 
is proved. 

First, it is said that God promised to preserve the Bible 
pure and unsullied, and we rely upon his promise that he 
has done so, and believe the Bible to be truly and fairly— 
the copies which we now read — his word. And so of a 
succession of ordinations in the ministry. Jesus Christ pro¬ 
mised to preserve the succession pure and unsullied, and we 
ought, in like manner, to believe he has done so. 

The answer to this is, First, that there is in the Bible no 
such promise, nor any promise of any kind respecting or con¬ 
nected with a succession of ordinations. The Saviour pro¬ 
mised to be with his ministers to the end of time, but said 
nothing about a connected chain of ordinations. He said, 
“ Lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the world.” 
And this promise is every day verified out of the succession. 
Perhaps its consoling benefits are experienced as warmly and 
fully out as in the supposed succession. 

Secondly, it is held that we have the same evidence of the 
correctness of the regular uninterrupted transmission of min¬ 
isterial orders by successive ordinations, from bishop to bishop, 
that we have of the correctness of the successive recopyings 
and reprintings of the Bible which we now read. And hence 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


315 


if we receive our present version of the Bible as infallibly 
true, we should for the same reasons, and with the same 
proof, receive the present orders of ministers as genuine— 
that is, as having infallibly descended in the same way. 

The answer to this is, that we do not by any means rely 
upon the correctness of the many intermediate copyings and 
reprintings of the Bible in its chronological descent down to 
our times, for the belief which we have in the correctness of 
the present version. Ycrily, if this were the only ground of 
confidence in the correctness of our present version of the 
Bible, it would be rejected to-day, by every sensible man, as 
being not infallibly genuine. 

So far from this mode of transmission being reliable in the 
case of the Bible, it is well known that many of the copyings 
and reprintings of the Bible have been very incorrect. Bib¬ 
lical critics, therefore, do not rely upon them, nor pretend to 
use them. In ascertaining the correctness of the present 
version of the Bible, they pass over the intermediate time, 
and compare the present copy with copies of acknowledged 
correctness, still extant, and which date back very nearly to 
the days of the apostles. And the correctness of these early 
copies are tested by comparing them in different countries and 
different Churches with each other, and by other direct and 
intrinsic testimony. 

Indeed, the Bible would be but a flimsy foundation for 
Christian hope, if we had to rely for its correctness on the 
safe keeping of the Church, all along down its chronology. 
The argument, therefore, has no sort of soundness or sub¬ 
stance in it. 

The analogical argument would only be good in case we 
could test a present ordination, directly, without an interme¬ 
diate succession, with an ordination made by an apostle, or 
one very near him. This argument, then, to mean any thing, 
entirely abrogates the idea of successive ordinations. 


316 


TIIE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


CHAPTER XV. 

THE EARLY CANONS. 

Another argument brought forward to sustain the apos¬ 
tolic succession is, that it was made the law of the Church 
at a very early period. We are told that about the year 200 
the Church at Rome passed the following canon, viz. : 

“ Canon 1. Let a bishop be ordained by two or three 
bishops.” 

But before this canon can be offered in evidence, several 
things are necessary : 

1. It must be shown that the term “ bishop,” as used in 
the canon, means the same as it is now intended to mean, a 
ruler of pastors and Churches, a diocesan. Whereas it is 
well known, and admitted , that in those days “ bishop” meant 
the pastor of a congregation. This has been abundantly 
proved. 

2. It is necessary to be shown, not merely that that Church 
passed this canon, but that it was actually in force in all the 
Churches in the world, and has continued to be the law in 
all the Churches in the world ever since. For it to have 
been the law in some place or places, or in some age or ages, 
amounts to nothing, manifestly. 

3. It should be proven also, not only that this was the law 
of the Church—this of itself amounts to nothing—it must 
be proven that the law was never violated in one single in¬ 
stance. It is not the law we are inquiring into, it is the sue- 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


317 


cession of ordinations. If this was the law, then the only 
important question is, Was the law always observed? 

But again. If it be true that this canon was adopted 
by the Church, at the time specified, then it completely de¬ 
stroys the doctrine of apostolic succession at a blow. 

The doctrine we are controverting assumes that this law 
respecting successive ordinations in a line of bishops is a 
D ivine law. The argument of non-prelacy is, that bishops 
were set over presbyters and Churches as a mere human or 
Church regulation. The only question is whether the regu¬ 
lation was a Divine regulation, or a Church regulation. And 
the canon before us says the Church adopted the law, in the 
year 200, that bishops should ordain. 

Very well, that is all we ask for. That is all we have ever 
contended for—that the bishop is a bishop, and ordains by a 
mere Church law. Everybody knows that episcopacy has 
existed in the Church from an early period. This is not the 
question. The question is whether it existed in pursuance 
of a Divine or a human law. And now we are informed, by 
high-Churchmen themselves, that episcopacy originated in a 
canon of the Church. Very well; that is all that is asked 
for. 

It is hardly to be presumed that the Church made a law 
requiring ordinations to be performed by bishops when this 
was already the law of God, well known as it must have been. 

To try to avoid this difficulty, it has been said by Mr. Yer- 
ger, a very able writer on this subject, that this canon only 
prescribed the manner in which ordinations should be made. 
But this does not get rid of the difficulty; for the canon 
does not attempt to prescribe any manner in which ordinations 
shall be made. It only says that two or three bishops shall 
do the work. The canon is instant death to prelacy. 


318 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


CHAPTER XVI. 

SUCCESSION IS INCONSISTENT WITH PROTESTANTISM. 

The principles of apostolic succession and those of Protes¬ 
tantism are absolutely antagonistical and irreconcilable. A 
man who understands the questions cannot by possibility be 
at the same time a successionist and a Protestant. This point 
needs but a brief explanation to make it so clear as to remove 
the possibility of fair debate. 

The doctrine of succession affirms that the authority of a 
minister is derived only by a succession of commissions which 
descends personally in a line of bishops, tactually, from the 
apostles to each minister of the present day. Outside of this 
line of connecting commissions there is no commission, no 
authority to preach, no sacraments, no Church. These last- 
mentioned consequences flow naturally and logically from the 
first-mentioned premises. 

Now, what is Protestantism ? It is the right in Christians, 
in all Christians, of practical protest against the authority 
of the Church, upon the ground that the Church, in the 
teachings of its ministry, has departed from the Bible, and 
teaches contrary to its teachings. 

This right to protest against the Church and depart from 
her arises from this simple consideration : that it is the im¬ 
perative and absolute duty of Christians to obey Christ, as he 
has expressed himself in the Bible. Now, if the Church 
should teach contrary to the Bible, the Christian must neces- 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 319 

sarily repudiate the one or the other. And his absolute duty 
to obey the Bible gives him the right, nay, makes it his duty, 
to protest against the Church, and requires him to repudiate 
her teachings in that event. 

This is precisely the thing, and the only thing, that was 
done by Luther and his associates at the Reformation. A 
portion of the Church protested against the teachings and 
authority of the then existing organized Church. Ministers 
and people went out of ‘ and away from , the existing Church, 
repudiating her authority and her teachings, and organized a 
new Church, or, what is the same thing, continued a reformed 
Church. And Protestants still continue so to protest against 
both the authority and the teachings of Home. 

Now, how could these protesting ministers go off from the 
Church, repudiating her authority, and at the same time con¬ 
tinue to preach by or in virtue of her authority ? This is a plain 
solecism. The protesting ministers preached, if they preached 
at all, by authority derived otherwise than from the ministers 
against whose authority and teachings they protested. They 
could not do both. They could not at the same time protest 
against and repudiate the authority of the then existing Church, 
and also preach under and by virtue of such authority. Those 
who do the latter do not protest , and so are not Protestants. 

This was the distinction, and the only distinction, which 
separated between those who adhered to the Romish Church, 
and those who followed Luther and the Reformers. And it is 
the only essential principle of distinction between Romanists 
and Reformers to the present day. 

There are many practices and dogmas of faith in the 
Romish Church which Protestants repudiate and oppose, and 
which Roman Catholics adhere to and observe. But what is 
the ground of adherence on the one hand, and of repudiation 
on the other ? This is it. Romanists feel themselves bound 
to adhere to the Church’s, or, what is the same thing with 


320 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


them, the minister’s authority. They are bound to adhere to 
this authority, because they say it is Divine authority. And it 
is Divine authority because it has descended from the lips and 
hands of Jesus Christ in a line of connecting commissions. 

And the authority is repudiated by Protestants, because 
they take the other hand, and say, We are not bound abso¬ 
lutely by the bishop : we do not acknowledge the binding 
force of such authority, so transmitted. And how do they 
get clear of such authority ? They must be bound abso¬ 
lutely, by the authority of Christ, descended in some way. 
They get clear of it in this way: they say the Bible is the 
authority; the Bible is the rule; the Bible is the law; and 
not the minister or the Church. 

And this, after all, is the only principle of distinction 
between Bomanism and Protestantism. The Bomanist says 
the minister has the true and proper authority, descended 
from Christ: it has been transmitted to him in this line of 
successive ordinations. The Protestant says no: this cannot 
be authority absolutely binding; because, for one reason, it 
comes through a fallible, and not an infallible, channel of 
transmission: the Bible forms the only infallible channel of 
transmission : we are absolutely bound by it. Those who 
leave the Bible leave the imperative law: they go away from 
the Church and the true authority, for the true Church must 
be where the Bible is, because the Bible is the true authority. 

Hence Protestant Christians regulate their conduct by the 
Bible, and Bomanists feel themselves absolutely bound by the 
ministry. 

This doctrine of transmitted authority through the persons 
of bishops, has been attempted to be brought down through 
the scenes of the Beformation, and reconciled with the prin¬ 
ciples thereof, by this consideration : That the protesting 
ministers at the Beformation, when they went out from the 
Bomish Church, carried with them their orders —that is, their 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


321 


authority to preach. This is a self-contradiction. How could 
they carry with them authority to preach, and at the same 
time protest against such authority ? 

If the Romish bishops, at the Reformation, had the exclu¬ 
sive authority to preach, derived by a succession of commis¬ 
sions, then those who acknowledged this as being the source 
and essence of their authority, were bound to preach, if they 
preached at all, under and in obedience to such authority; 
and so they could not protest against it. They were not Pro¬ 
testants, for they did not protest. 

But some of the Romish ministers did protest, and became 
Protestants. Of course they threw off and repudiated the 
binding force of authority derived in that way. Of course it 
is acknowledged that the Romish bishops had authority to 
preach, and that the Protestant ministers had authority to 
preach. But certainly the latter, after they became Protest¬ 
ants, preached, if they preached at all, in virtue of some 
other authority than that against which they protested. 

But, moreover, let us see what became of the authority to 
preach—or orders—which the protesting ministers were sup¬ 
posed to have carried with them from the Romish commun¬ 
ion. They were all excommunicated! The same Church, 
the same authority, which conferred the orders, took them 
away, and left every man, so far as his authority was con¬ 
cerned, not even a layman, but a heretic ! 

Now, it can hardly be said that they preached by authority 
derived from successive ordinations through the former Church, 
and which authority they carried with them out of the Rom¬ 
ish Church. Where are the orders, where is the authority 
of a minister who is solemnly excommunicated by the Church 
which conferred the orders and gave the authority ? 

The reforming ministers continued to preach, utterly dis¬ 
regarding the excommunication—nay, contemptuously com¬ 
mitting the bull to the flames; and they continue to preach 
14 * 


322 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


to this day. By what authority do they preach ? Whatever 
authority they may be supposed to have, it is certainly some 
other than that which is supposed to have been derived 
through the chain of commissions or the apostolic succession. 

Hitherto the argument respecting the transmission of 
authority through the scenes of the Reformation to the Angli¬ 
can Church, upon the principle of the apostolic succession, 
has, it would seem, been considered to turn upon the question 
whether a Romish bishop, truly in orders, did become a Pro¬ 
testant, and so ordain in the Protestant Church ? But surely 
this cannot be an important, certainly not a vital, question. 
Because, supposing such to be the case, he is now a Protest¬ 
ant, and, as such , he could not exercise an authority, in any 
official sense, with which he became invested as a Roman 
Catholic. 

It will not, it is presumed, be supposed by any, that official 
authority , or power, may be lawfully exercised, in spite of the 
authority which lawfully and properly conferred it. This is 
supposing that two lawful things may lawfully oppose, and 
fight, and destroy each other, or that lawful and unlawful 
are the same. 

I do not consider the famous question respecting the ordi¬ 
nation of Archbishop Parker—whether he was or was not 
truly ordained at Lambeth, by Bishop Barlow, in pursuance 
of the queen’s commission, and whether Barlow was or was 
not truly ordained by a bishop; and the famous Nag’s-IIead 
question—whether Parker was or was not ordained at the 
Nag’s-Head Tavern,—I do not, I say, regard these contested 
questions as of much importance. The ordinations, if per¬ 
formed at all, were certainly not performed in pursuance of 
the authority of the Church of Rome. 

The question is, Where is the authority of the Reforming 
bishops, which they derived through the succession of ordina¬ 
tions from former bishops? Manifestly there is none. We 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


323 


must take the one course or the other. If we hold to the 
authority derived by succession, very well; then we do not 
protest—are not Protestants. If we repudiate that authority, 
so derived, protest against its binding force, and, still fur¬ 
ther, if the Church which conferred the authority repudiates 
us, and protests against our using the authority so conferred, 
then we are Protestants; and if we continue to preach, we 
either preach without authority, or by virtue of some other 
authority than that derived by succession. 

It is a contradiction in terms to suppose a man may preach, 
or do any thing else, by the authority of a Church without the 
consent of such Church; because authority can neither be 
conferred, or retained after being conferred, otherwise than 
by the consent and voluntary action of the person or body 
conferring the authority. To suppose that Protestant minis¬ 
ters preached, in the sixteenth century, or any other century, 
by authority derived in any way from the Church of Rome, 
is to suppose an absurdity. As Protestant ministers, we 
either have no authority—as the Romanists hold—or else we 
have obtained authority from some other source. Nothing 
can be more certain and conclusive than this, that we have 
no authority from Rome to preach. 

Suppose a minister to be excommunicated from the Church 
of England. Can he come to America, or stay in England, 
and continue to preach and exercise all the functions of a 
minister, in virtue of the authority which he once had, and of 
which he has been legally deprived ? That supposes as flat a con¬ 
tradiction as can be stated in language. To be excommunicated 
means to be deprived of authority, and of all Church privileges. 

Suppose a man solemnly renounces his connection with a 
Church—any Church—can he, after that, preach and exer¬ 
cise ministerial functions in virtue of authority thus renounced? 

These cases precisely fit the circumstances and condition 
and relation of the Romish and Protestant Churches. 


324 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


These principles were perfectly understood by the Reform¬ 
ers. No man or set of men ever did or could more completely 
denounce and repudiate the doctrine of transmitted authority 
in the Church, or apostolic succession, than did the Reformers 
in the very first acts of reorganization which they performed. 

The beginning of the reformed Church might perhaps be 
dated at the city of Spire, in 1526. D’Aubigne says: “A 
constitution was now to be given to the renovated Church.’ 7 
The providence of God had called away the Pope and the 
Emperor, the two great enemies of the Reformation, to war 
with each other ) which gave the Reformers time for repose, 
reflection, and better organization. 

The great historian of the Reformation says: 

“After three days’ discussion, which had been a continual 
triumph for the evangelical doctrine, men were elected and 
commissioned to constitute the Churches of Hesse in accord¬ 
ance with the word of God. They were more than three 
days occupied in the task, and then their new constitution was 
published in the name of the synod. 

“ The first ecclesiastical constitution produced by the Re¬ 
formation should have a place in history, so much the more 
as it was then set forward as a model for the new Churches 
of Christendom.” 

The following are some of the features of this constitution : 

“The Church can only be taught and governed by the 
word of its Sovereign Pastor. Whoever has recourse to any 
other word shall be deposed and excommunicated. 

“Every pious man, learned in the word of God, whatever be 
his condition, may be elected bishop if he desire it, for he is 
called inwardly of God. 

“ Let no one believe that by a bishop we understand any 
thing else than a simple minister of the word of God. 

“The ministers are servants, and consequently they ought 
not to be lords, princes, or governors. 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


825 


u Let the faithful assemble and choose their bishops and 
deacons.” See D’Aubigne’s History of the Reformation, 
first sixteen books in one volume, pp. 438, 439. 

The very “ protest” itself, from which Protestants take 
their name, which was read before the diet of Spire on the 
memorable 19th of April, 1529, and which, as D’Aubigne, as 
well as the world, declares contains “the very essence of Pro¬ 
testantism,” sets forth this same doctrine, and maintains that 
the gospel is to be ministered in all things according to its 
own writing in opposition to the Romish doctrine of trans¬ 
mitted authority through the historic medium of the Church. 
See D’Aubigne, p. 451. 

The only difficulty that ever existed between the Reformers 
on the one hand and the Romanists on the other: the only 
dispute or difference between Protestants and Romanists 
now, of a primary or fundamental character, is this: Are we 
to be governed, in ecclesiastical and religious matters, by 
the authority of the ministers, or the authority of the Bible ? 

Romanists hold to the former—Protestants maintain the 
latter. 

The famous “ Augsburg Confession ,” which is generally and 
justly considered the Magna Charta of the Reformation, holds 
the same doctrine, and confines the Christian ministry to the 
word of God solely, repudiating all supposed Divine authority 
which the Church furnishes through its channel of transmis¬ 
sion. 

Here lies the very point of distinction between Protestant¬ 
ism and Romanism, viz.: a ministry deriving its authority 
direct from the written word of God, recognized by the ordi¬ 
nation of the actually existing Church, on the one hand and 
a ministry deriving its authority from a historic Church of 
past existence, through the medium of transmission by suc¬ 
cessive commissions, on the other. The one is Bible Chris - 
tianity ) the other is Church Christianity. 


326 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


And again. This doctrine of authority from Christ coming 
down through a series of ordinations cannot possibly be the 
doctrine of Protestants, from the consideration that Protest¬ 
ants believe personal piety, religion in spirit, Christianity in 
essence, to he an essential ingredient in the composition of a true 
Church of Christ. Put if transmitted authority be the true 
and only proper authority of a minister, then any man may 
be a minister who will submit to the imposition of the hands 
of a bishop and listen to the ceremony. An infidel may be a 
bishop, and his followers a Church. He has the “ commis¬ 
sion,and they receive his ministry. Here is a true ministry 
without piety, and a true Church without Christianity ! This 
may be allowable, and may and does sometimes happen in 
Romanism, but it subverts every principle of Protestantism. 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


327 


CHAPTER XVII. 

“SUCCESSION” SCHISM AT ICAL. 

D’Aubigne, in his fifth volume of the History of the Re¬ 
formation, at pages 4 and 5 speaks as follows: 

a A second motive forced the author to acknowledge the ne¬ 
cessity of a true history of the English Reformation. An 
active party in the Episcopalian Church is reviving, with zeal, 
perseverance, and talent, the principles of Roman Catholicism, 
and striving to impose them on the Reformed Church of Eng¬ 
land, and incessantly attacking the foundations of evangelical 
Christianity. A number of young men in the universities, 
seduced by that deceitful mirage which some of their teach¬ 
ers have placed before their eyes, are launching out into cler¬ 
ical and superstitious theories, and running the risk of fall¬ 
ing, sooner or later, as many have done already, into the ever- 
yawning gulf of Popery. We must, therefore, call to mind 
the reforming principles which were proclaimed from the very 
commencement of this great transformation.” 

It is well known to all persons acquainted with Church his¬ 
tory that these English “ principles of Roman Catholicism” 
had their origin in a schism in the Church of England in the 
year 1680, headed by Archbishop Sancroft, in which revolt 
he and his associates, seven other bishops, were deposed. 
They left the Church because it would not go with them in 
their high notions of kingly and episcopal prerogative by Hi- 


328 


TIIE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


vine right of succession; and, as Mosheim says, (Ecclesiasti¬ 
cal History, vol. iv., p. 112,) “ formed a new Episcopal Church, 
which dilfered in certain points of doctrine, and certain cir¬ 
cumstances of public worship, from the established Church of 
England.” 

“ The nonjurors, or high-Churclimen,” says Mosheim, same 
volume, page 113, “who boast with peculiar ostentation of 
their orthodoxy, and treat the low Church as unsound and 
schismatical, differ in several things from the members of the 
Episcopal Church in its present establishment.” 

This is no new thing in the world. It has been heard of 
before and since a thousand times, that an innovating and 
schismatical party, either in the Church or the state, in order 
to make a show of innocence, of regularity, and legality, are 
the first to cry out “schism,” “party,” “heresy.” 

This famous schism in the English Church, the seeds of 
which were first sown by Laud in 1604, and which was reared 
into maturity by Sancroft and his fellow-nonjurors, and was 
so zealously defended by the eccentric Henry Hodwell, is 
alive at this day. The unfortunate connection in England 
between the Church and the state has alone given it opportu¬ 
nity to live. The party lately revived in England under the 
supervision of the famous semi-Papist, Hr. Pusey, and his 
followers and abettors in and around the University of Oxford. 

Well may the pious and learned H’Aubigne say it is carry¬ 
ing many “into the ever-yawning gulf of Popery.” The 
increasing popularity, and the increased and increasing circu¬ 
lation of the Bible over the world, will, it is confidently 
believed, soon bring about a state of things which will require 
a speedy return of the entire party to simple Christianity, or 
an advance a step or two farther into the “ gulf” to which its 
principles so naturally lead. 

There are some facts and circumstances connected with 
this schism that are truly remarkable. 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 329 

# 

Iii the first place, it is remarkable that it should have con¬ 
tinued to exist and to show a bold front so long. Secondly, 
it is remarkable that all this while it should have remained 
legally in the pale of the Church. But it is still more re¬ 
markable that it should have so managed, by artifice, seeming 
unconcern, boldness, mildness, and audacity, as to claim before 
the world, and to have superinduced the belief in the world, 
to some extent, that it really changed places in the Church 
with the Church itself! According to its claims, it is even 
now, both in England and in this country, the Church ! 

High-Churchmen think no more of styling themselves “the 
Church,” in their writings, publications, etc., than of making 
the most commonplace remark. Nay, much more than this : 
they have caused it to be believed in the world, to a consider¬ 
able extent, among well-informed persons, who have not taken 
the trouble to look or inquire into their pretensions, that the 
high-Church doctrines of apostolic succession and episcopal 
prerogative are really the doctrines of the Protestant Episcopal 
Church, and of the Church of England. 

This is a great error. The doctrine of apostolic succession 
never was the doctrine of any Church. So far from its ever 
having been the doctrine of any Church, it never was avowed 
or affirmed as a doctrine or tenet by any body of men, acting 
in any capacity, and claiming to represent or speak in behalf 
of any Church in Christendom, so far as is known to ecclesi¬ 
astical history. Let him who questions it make the denial. 

It may, perhaps, be supposed that an exception ought to be 
made to this general remark in favor of the Romish semi- 
ecclesiastical institution; but the facts do not require it. The 
doctrine of the papists, if there can be said to be any doctrine 
among them on the subject, is that the right to ordain inheres 
exclusively in the pope, or bishop of the Church of Rome. He 
has this right, of course, because he has all right; and his 
practice is to dispense this authority among his bishops at 


330 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


pleasure. But the Church of Borne never adopted the doc¬ 
trine of the apostolic succession. 

So, then, the apostolic succession party, first raised up avow¬ 
edly as a schism by Laud, Sancroft, and Dodwell, was resus¬ 
citated by Pusey as the Church’s orthodoxy! And even in 
this country, where we have no king as its natural foundation 
and prototype, it has gained some foothold. Here we have a 
party in a Church—an innovation, an internal schism—setting 
up and teaching for fundamental, primary, and essential doc¬ 
trines of Christianity, things which the Church never heard 
of, which she repudiates, does not own, does not acknowledge. 

And in setting forth these new, peculiar doctrines of innova¬ 
tion and schism, its partisans, with sang-froid and indifference 
most remarkable, claim to be teaching the very straitest doc¬ 
trines of the Church! 

In these things the Protestant Episcopal Church in this 
country is suffering greatly; and in England the Established 
Church, it is feared, is suffering still worse. But that “ ever- 
yawning gulf,” of which D’Aubigne speaks, will, in all likeli¬ 
hood, ere long be called upon to decide the contest. 



THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


331 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE NAKED QUESTION. 

We come now for the first time to touch more directly upon 
the doctrine of apostolic succession. So far as the simple 
question of apostolic succession is concerned, all that has been 
previously said might very easily have been dispensed with. 
The various questions which have been brought forward under 
this general head of our subject are, however, deemed neces¬ 
sary to a proper elucidation of the ecclesiastical constitution; 
and they are not, perhaps, improperly classed in the category 
where they are placed. But we now come to take a direct 
hold of the question of apostolic succession, and to redeem our 
former pledges on this point; for something was really in¬ 
tended to be meant when it was promised that it should be 
looked at. 

It is now to be seen that there is no such debatable ques¬ 
tion as “ apostolic succession that it is properly and philo¬ 
sophically a figment; never was, never could be believed by 
any man of moderate acquaintance with the subject, otherwise 
than by a most egregious blunder; that it is a question not 
debatable—an argument without an issue. 

The idea of apostolic succession naturally divides itself into 
two questions, or aspects. First, Does the theory of Christi¬ 
anity require, in order to the existence of a Church and 
ministry, such a succession of ordinations? Secondly, Has 


/ 


332 THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 

that succession been actually preserved ? These questions, of 
course, cover the entire ground intended to be occupied. 

Now, if the first question is to be answered in the affirma¬ 
tive, and the second cannot be, then it follows of necessity 
that a Church does not exist. For if the indispensable divine 
conditions of a Church do not exist, of course the Church 
does not. 

It must, therefore, appear that both these questions are 
claimed to be answered in the affirmative, before any issue 
can arise on the subject. There must be two sides to a 
debatable question. The propositions on either side must 
antagonize, and meet in issue with each other. 

Now, is it claimed , on the part of high-Churchmen, that 
the theory of Christianity requires succession, and also, that 
the succession exists ? The first branch of this question is 
conceded. It is claimed by high-Churchmen that the system 
of Christianity does require a succession, in order to the 
existence of a ministry or a Church. But this question alone 
—unless they affirm the existence of succession as a fact— 
cannot be debated for any other purpose than to inquire 
whether a Church and ministry exist at all. And this ques¬ 
tion is notoriously not in issue. For if they do not affirm both 
the abstract doctrine, and also the fact of the historic exist¬ 
ence of succession, there is manifestly nothing to debate 
about. If the theory or abstract doctrine be a true doctrine, 
and the absolute requirement, the succession as a fact, be 
wanting, then there is neither Church nor ministry to debate 
about. 

We inquire, then, Do they affirm the-fact of succession? 
And we answer, They do not. And this we are now to show, 
beyond question , or fail to sustain the propositions we have 
previously laid down. 

A question of fact, in issue, or supposed to be in issue, 
cannot be said to be affirmed by one party and denied by the 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


333 


other, in any logical sense, without the presentation of some 
relevant testimony to sustain the affirmation. Let this point 
he restated and left clear. One party states a fact , which 
is denied on the other hand. Now, this fact cannot be said 
to be in issue between the parties, in a debatable form, until 
some testimony on the point be submitted to sustain the truth 
of the fact affirmed. To say of a fact, by opposing parties, 
“It is,” “It is not”—“It is,” “It is not,” is not argument. 
The negative cannot produce proof. The affirmant must pro¬ 
duce testimony to sustain the allegation; and then the debate 
is only an inquiry whether this testimony, with rebutting tes¬ 
timony, if any be produced, put against it, amounts to proof. 

Now, the fact of apostolic succession—that is, the fact that 
successive ordinations, in an unbroken chain, have been kept 
up in the Church from the apostles to the present day—is 
supposed to be stated by high-Churchmen • and is denied on 
the other hand. And it is alleged that this question is not 
in issue between the supposed disputants, for the reason that 
the party affirming does not produce testimony to prove the 
fact affirmed. 

Of course it is not here pretended to be meant that high- 
Churchmen do not produce sufficient testimony to sustain 
their allegation. This would be a mere idle begging of the 
question. The issue is joined, and the question rendered 
debatable, whenever any testimony is produced that is rele¬ 
vant to the issue. Here is the point. There has not been 
any testimony produced on this question. This is the point 
that is to be made clear. 

Let it be remembered that we are now only looking at the 
fact of a succession of ordinations. Let us proceed slowly 
and securely. The ground we are now travelling over may 
not be as familiar to the reader as to the writer. We will 
therefore walk moderately just along here. 

The production of a witness to prove a fact is not always 


334 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


necessarily tlie production of testimony; because the witness 
may say be does not know any thing about the fact in ques¬ 
tion, though he may know several things about several other 
facts. 

This is precisely the condition of high-Churchmen. They 
have produced several witnesses; but every one, when called 
upon to speak, tells us that he knows nothing about the fact 
of which he is inquired. 

Now, let us see if this is not the case. Let us look at the 
several things which these witnesses say; and if any one says 
one word about or in relation to the fact of apostolic succes¬ 
sion, then the present argument has failed, and this chapter 
is an empty boast. 

We must distinguish between testimony introduced to 
prove the fact of succession, from that which relates to the 
doctrine of succession, as a Bible doctrine. It is admitted 
that they produce testimony—such as it is—on this latter 
point; but it is denied that they produce any testimony on 
the former. 

Arguments inquiring into the question of u three orders” 
in the ministry, do not relate to the fact of succession, no 
matter what may be alleged, or proved, or failed to be proved, 
in relation thereto. Neither do arguments about “ episco¬ 
pacy,” or about the sentiments or opinions of the apostles, or 
the Fathers, or of Christ himself, relate to the question of the 
fact of succession, any more than they relate to questions in 
astronomy or geography. 

The question of the fact of succession is, of course, a his¬ 
toric question. It inquires into several historical facts. It 
inquires whether an apostle of Jesus Christ ordained a cer¬ 
tain man, who ordained a certain other man, who ordained a 
certain other man, who ordained a certain other man, and so 
on, down the catalogue of men’s lives, to the present day. 
Nothing but history can prove a historic question. Of 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


335 


course there is nothing in the Bible that can testify on this 
question, because the Bible was written before, or about the 
time, these historic facts are supposed to have begun to occur. 

No testimony, therefore, can be relevant to the question 
before us but historic testimony. And this history must 
claim to lie along the chronology of the Church, from the 
Christian era until the present time. 

We are now prepared to look at the witnesses high-Churcli- 
men produce, and see whether the testimony which they 
utter does or does not relate to the question of the fact of 
apostolic succession. If it does, this argument defeats itself; 
if it does not, it is sustained. 

There are two witnesses, and only two, that have ever been 
brought forward by higli-Churchmen, for the purpose of 
attempting to sustain this point. The first is, the canons of 
the Church. We will look at this. 

It is said that as early as about the year 200 a canon of the 
Church required that a bishop should be ordained by two or 
three bishops. We have looked at this supposed canon, and 
the consequences which flow from it, in a former chapter, to 
which the reader is referred. 

The rules of the Church, however, no matter when or by 
whom they were adopted, or how numerous they were, do 
not relate to the question before us. They only direct what 
Church officers or members must do. They do not tell us 
what they have done. And the question, What has been 
done? is what we are looking at. Suppose it were shown 
that, from the year 200, or 100, to the present time, the law 
of the Church was, that the apostolic succession must be kept 
up. That does not show that it was kept up. The law of 
the Church has been, from the beginning, in all parts of the 
Church, to the present hour, that its officers and members 
must be pious; but that does not prove that they were inva¬ 
riably pious. 


336 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


We interrogate the witness—the law of the Church— 
whether the succession of ordinations was or was not inva¬ 
riably kept up ? And the answer is, that in the year 200 a 
canon was passed, requiring that a bishop should be ordained 
by two or three bishops; and that in a few, perhaps two or 
three, other places in the Church, in different ages and in a 
few different countries, similar laws were passed. Of this, 
however, we are not specially informed. 

But that does not answer the question. It is manifest, 
therefore, that the law of the Church does not know any 
thing about the question in hand, does not pretend to know 
or to say a word, pro or con , in relation to it. In the nature of 
the case, it cannot. A law is a rule , not a fact. History is 
fact, or a record of facts; and, of course, nothing can prove 
a fact of past existence but history. 

Moreover, the law of the Church to which we are referred, 
it is not pretended existed all the time in all parts of the 
Church. It is not pretended that, invariably, the law of 
the Church says any particular thing on any question of dis¬ 
cipline. 

It is manifest, therefore, that this witness must be dis¬ 
missed. He does not pretend to know any thing about the 
question propounded. And in the very nature of the case, 
he could not know. 

Of what avail could be the law of the Church requiring 
ordinations to be made by bishops, or in any other particular 
way, in the ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries, when 
it is well known by every one, and acknowledged by all, that 
all the laws of the Church were notoriously and flagrantly 
violated as a common thing ? 

Moreover, the law of the Church does not pretend even to 
say that a bishop, what is now called a bishop, shall ordain. 
It says a “ bishop,” meaning a pastor of a Church, shall 
ordain. It has been already proved that u bishop” then 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


337 


meant pastor. So tliat the law of the Church, according to 
its true meaning, is complied with now, every day, by all 
orthodox Churches. Pastors or presbyters ordain in all the 
Churches. 

The next witness brought forward is history. Here we 
have, at least, a competent witness—one that, in the nature 
of the case, could or might know all about the question in 
hand—if he chances to know. And here is, in fact, the only 
witness which, in the very nature of the case, can know any 
thing about this question, because it is a historic question. 
A mathematical question must be proved by mathematics; a 
logical question must be proved by logic; a historic question 
must be proved by history. 

Now, let us see what histqry says, or purports to say, on 
this question. We will look into every historic fact which is 
adduced or pretended to be adduced. And if it is pretended 
by any man that history says any thing conclusive on this 
point, as to the truth of this fact, then this argument fails ) 
otherwise it stands good. 

It is admitted that history is able to testify, in many in¬ 
stances, of bishops ordaining bishops, meaning prelates. 
Many such ordinations are known to have been performed in 
our own times, within our own knowledge. It is claimed , 
too, that such ordinations were performed in ancient times, 
and occasionally in other parts of the history of the Church. 
All this is admitted; that is, in this argument it is admitted, 
for we are bound to admit all that any man claims as a his¬ 
toric fact pertaining to this question. 

The question is, Is it claimed by any man that history pur¬ 
ports to prove a succession, an uninterrupted chain of ordina¬ 
tions, from the apostles to the present time ? If this fact, 
which is the fact of succession, is claimed to be supported by 
the production of any historic facts, or any facts which are 
claimed to be historic, then this argument is defeated. 

15 


338 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


The only historic fact which was ever attempted to be 
produced by any writer on the apostolic succession, is the 
followiug list of bishops. It is said by Chapin and others 
that there are two or three similar lists in the early part of 
the history of the Church, which connect with this, about in 
the sixth or seventh centuries. Of course these lists furnish 
the same kind of testimony as this one; in truth, they are but 
portions of this. This list is the one most relied upon by 
high-Churchmen, and therefore I prefer to use it. It is 
copied from an official pamphlet of the u Protestant Episcopal 
Tract Society,” No. 174, and is found in almost all their 
publications on this subject. The remarks which precede and 
follow the list accompany it in those publications everywhere, 
so far as I have seen. 

u But the question is often asked, 1 Can the succession be 
traced up step by step to the apostles ? Is there no breach 
in it which would invalidate the whole? 7 The Master's 
promise, 1 Lo ! I am with you alway, even to the end of the 
world/ is enough to assure the humble believer that no such 
breach has occurred, or can occur to the end of the world. 
Besides, the utmost pains have always been taken in every 
branch of the Church to keep the succession regular and pure. 
Diocesan succession and apostolical succession are two distinct 
things. As in Maryland, for example, we have had four 
bishops; but no one of them has been concerned in the con¬ 
secration of his successors. So that a vacancy or interregnum 
in a particular diocese—or in fifty or a hundred dioceses, 
even of long continuance, does not affect the succession in the 
least. One of the apostolical canons enjoins that two or three 
bishops, at least, shall unite in every consecration. The suc¬ 
cession, therefore, does not depend upon a line of single 
bishops in one diocese running back to the apostles—because 
every bishop has had at least three to ordain him, either one 
of whom had power to perpetuate the succession. How 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


839 


rapidly do tlie securities multiply as we go back ! Bishop 
Whittingham had three to ordain him; his ordainers had 
nine; at the third step there were twenty-seven ; at the 
fourth, eighty-one ; at the fifth, two hundred and forty-three; 
and so on, increasing in a threefold proportion. Now if any 
one of the entire number to whom Bishop W/s consecration 
may be traced back had a valid ordination, the succession is 
in him, and he can transmit it to any other in whose conse¬ 
cration he may assist. The securities, therefore, are incalcu¬ 
lably strong ; and the claim of any duly consecrated bishop to the 
apostolic succession is more certain than that of any monarch 
upon earth to his hereditary crown. Lists of the apostolical 
succession, in descent from the different apostles, have been 
carefully preserved by Eusebius and other early writers, and 
they have been continued in different lines down to the pres¬ 
ent day. Any reader who desires to consult them is referred 
to Percival on Apostolical Succession, and Chapin’s Primitive 
Church. Borne may trace its line to St. Peter—the Greeks 
to St. Paul—the Syrians and Nestorians to St. Thomas, and 
the American Episcopal Church to St. John. 

u Bishop White, the head of the American line of bishops, 
was consecrated by the Archbishop of Canterbury. We will 
therefore present a list beginning with St. John, and coming 
through the Episcopate of Lyons, in France or Gaul, and that 
of Canterbury in England, till it connects with ours in the 
United States of America. 


ST. JOHN. 


6. Verus. 


1. Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna. 7. Julius. 
Bishops of Lyons. 8. Ptolemy. 


1. Potliinus. 

2. Irenseus. 

3. Zacharias. 

4. Elias. 


5. Faustinus. 


9. Vocius. 

10. Maximus. 

11. Tetradus. 

12. Verissimus. 

13. Justus. 


340 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


14. Albinus. 

15. Martin. 

1G. Antiochus. 

17. Elpidius. 

18. Sicarius. 

19. Eucherius, 

20. Patiens. 

21. Lupicinus. 

22. Rusticus. 

23. Stephanus. 

24. Viventiolus. 

25. Eucherius, 2. 

26. Lupus. 

27. Licontius. 

28. Sacerdos. 

29. Nicetus. 

30. Priscus. 

31. .ZEtherius. A. P. 589. 

CANTERBURY. 

32. A. D. 596. Augustin, mis¬ 

sionary to the Anglo-Sax- 
33d ons, was consecrated by 

from Virgilius, 24th Bishop 

St. of Arles, assisted by 

John. JEtiierius, 31st Bishop 


of Lyons. a. d. 

34. Lawrence. 605 

35. Mellitus. 619 

36. Justus. 624 

37. Honorius. 634 

38. Adeodatus. 654 

39. Theodore. 668 

40. Brithwald. 693 

41. Tatwine. 734 

42. Notlielm. 735 

43. Cuthbert. 742 

44. Bregwin. 759 

45. Lambert. 763 


A. D. 

46. iEthelred, 1. 793 

47. Wulfred.. 803 

48. Theogild, or Feogild, 830 

consecrated June 5th, 
and died September 3d. 

49. Ceolnoth, Sept. 830 

50. JEthelred, 2d. 871 

51. Phlegmund. 891 

52. Athelm, or Adelm. 923 

53. Wulfelm. 928 

54. Odo Severus. 941 

55. Dunstan. 959 

56. iEthelgar. 988 

57. Siricus. 989 

68. Aluricus, or Alfricus. 996 

59. Elphege.1005 

60. Living, or Leoning, or 

Elkskan.1013 

61. Agelnoth, or 7Ethelnot...l020 

62. Edsin, or Elsin.1038 

63. Robert Oemeticensis.1050 

64. Stigand. .... 1052 

65. Lanfranc.1070 

66. Anselm.1093 

67. Rodulph.1114 

68. William Corbell.1122 

69. Theobold.1138 

70. Thomas & Becket.1162 

71. Richard.1174 

72. Baldwin Fordensis.1184 

73. Reginald Fitz Joceline...ll91 

74. Hubert Walten.1193 

75. Stephen Langton.1207 

76. Richard Wethersfield.1229 

77. Edmund.1234 

78. Boniface. 1245 

79. Robert Kilwarby.1272 

80. John Peckhara.1278 














































THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


341 


A. D. 

81. Robert Wincbelsea.1294 

82. Walter Reynold.1313 

83. Simon Mepham.1328 

84. John Stratford.1333 

85. Thomas Bradwardine...l348 

86. Simon Islip.1349 

87. Simon Langham.1366 

88. William Whittlesey.1368 

89. Simon Sudbury.1375 

90. William Courtnay.1381 

91. Thomas Arundel.1396 

92. Henry Chichely.1414 

93. John Stafford.1443 

94. John Kemp.1452 

95. Thomas Bourcher.1454 

96. John Morton.1486 

97. Henry Dean.1501 

98. William Wareham.1503 

99. Thomas Cranmer .1533 

100. Reginald Pole.1555 

101. Matthew Parker.1559 

102. Edmund Grindall, Dec. 1573 

103. JohnWhitgift.1583 


A. D. 

104. Richard Bancroft.1604 

105. George Abbott.1611 

106. William Laud.1633 

107. William Juxon..,..1660 

108. Gilbert Sheldon.1663 

109. William Sancroft.1677 

110. John Tillotson.1691 

111. Thomas Tennison.1694 

112. William Wake.1715 

113. John Potter.1737 

114. Thomas Seeker.1738 

115. Thomas Herring.1747 

116. Matthew Hutton.1757 

117. Frederick Cornwallis... 1768 

118. John Moore.1783 


119. From St. John, is William 
White, of Pennsylvania, con¬ 
secrated February 4th, 1787, 
by John Moore, Archbishop 
of Canterbury, assisted by the 
xVrchbishop of York, the Bish¬ 
op of Bath and Wells, and the 
Bishop of Peterborough. 


“The compilers of the list from which the above was 
taken have consulted the best authorities, and no more doubt 
of its authenticity can be entertained, than of any chrono¬ 
logical table of historical events, or list of the sovereigns of 
any country, drawn from its official registers and archives. 
The dates attached to the names of the Archbishops of Can¬ 
terbury indicate, in several instances, not the time of their 
consecration, but of their translation to that see/ 7 

Perhaps it might be satisfactory to some to see another list. 
The following is different from the foregoing prior to the year 
590 or 589, when they blend together in the see of Canter- 





































342 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


bury. The difference between them is, that the first list 
purports to lie in the see of Lyons from the apostolic days 
until the year 589, and the following, in the same period, pur¬ 
ports to lie in the see of Home. It will be seen that there is 
a slight error or discrepancy in the two lists, as to the date 
of the transfer of Augustin to England. This error is of no 
consequence. 


“'SUCCESSION OF BISHOPS. 

PROVING THAT FROM THE AGE OF THE APOSTLES DOWNWARD, THE 
ORDER OF BISHOPS, AS DISTINCT FROM THOSE OF THE PRESBYTERS 
AND DEACONS, HAS EXISTED IN THE CHURCH 

“The succession of the bishops of the Homan Church, 
especially of the earliest of their number, is full of intricacy. 
Little attention was paid to the minutiae of dates and succes¬ 
sions by the earlier Christian historians, and the consequence 
is, that moderns are unable accurately to determine these par¬ 
ticulars. 

“It is agreed by all that the apostles Peter and Paul 
founded the Roman episcopate. After their martyrdom, it is 
impossible to determine the dates of the bishops before the 
close of the first century. It would appear, however, that 
the Jewish and Gentile converts were for a time under 
the government of distinct bishops; Linus, succeeded by 
Cletus or Anacletus, having the government of the Jewish 
Christians, while Clement bore the episcopal rule over the 
Gentile converts. The latter probably survived the second 
or third of his contemporary bishops, (for it is uncertain 
whether the names of Cletus and Anacletus designate the 
same individual or consecutive bishops,) and united the gov¬ 
ernment of both bodies of Christians, now sufficiently amal¬ 
gamated to suffer a common discipline in his own person. He 
was succeeded about 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


343 


A. D. 

A. D. 

100 by Evarestus, who was 

sue- 366 Damasus I., 

ceeded by 

385 Siricius, 

108 Alexander, 

398 Anastasius I., 

117 Xystus, or Sixtus I., 

402 Innocent I., 

127 Telesphorus, 

417 Zosimus, 

138 Hyginus, 

418 Boniface I., 

150 Pius X., 

423 Celestine I., 

153 Anicetus, 

432 Sixtus III., 

162 Soter, 

440 Leo I., or, the Great , 

172 Eleutherius, 

461 Hilarius, 

185 Victor I., 

467 Simplicius, 

196 Zephyi'inus, 

483 Felix III., 

217 Calixtus I., 

492 Gelasius I., 

222 Urban I., 

496 Anastasius II., 

231 Pontianus, 

498 Symmachus, 

235 Anteros, 

514 Hormisdas, 

236 Fabianus, 

523 John I., 

251 Cornelius, 

526 Felix IV., 

252 Lucius I., 

530 Boniface II., 

255 Stephanus, 

532 John II., 

258 Sixtus II., 

535 Agapetus I., 

259 Dionysius, 

636 Sylverius, 

269 Felix I., 

555 Vigilius, 

275 Eutychianus, 

556 Pelagius I., 

283 Caius, 

661 John III., .. 

296 Marcellinus, 

575 Benedict I., 

308 Marcellus I., 

578 Pelagius II., 

310 Eusebius, 

590 Gregory I., or, the Great, who 

310 Melchiades, 

sent Augustin, a monk, mis¬ 

314 Silvester I., 

sionary to England, and, with 

336 Mark, 

the consent of Ethelbert, King 

337 Julius I., 

of Kent, consecrated him first 

352 Liberius, 

Archbishop of Canterbury.” 


Not a word is to be said with regard to the doubt expressed 
by high-Churchmen in introducing this last list, as to its his¬ 
toric correctness. The historic correctness of both lists is of 
course fully acknowledged in this argument. Correct or in- 


344 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


correct, certain or doubtful, good or bad, as the case may 
chance to be, they are here esteemed to be correct, because 
we are to admit as true all that high-Churchmen teach 
or attempt to teach, say or pretend to say, by way of testimony, 
as to the historic truth of the fact of apostolic succession. 

We are not now attempting to meet and rebut or under¬ 
value their testimony. It is not said that they produce no 
testimony on the question in issue, of much weight or credi¬ 
bility, or of little weight or credibility. If they produce, or 
purport to produce, any testimony, or any witness, that 
claims or purports to speak on the question in issue, we have 
failed in this argument. 

The reader has seen a list of the names of bishops, com¬ 
mencing with the Apostle John, and ending with Bishop 
White, of the United States; and we are to acknowledge the 
historie correctness of all the facts. These lists represent 
that these bishops succeeded each other in the sees of Borne, 
and of Lyons, until about the close of the sixth century, 
and after that in the see of Canterbury, in England. We 
then have a list of the successive bishops of Canterbury 
until the list transfers to the United States. And all this is 
presumed to be good history. 

Well: has the reader seen any thing on the subject of suc¬ 
cessive ordinations , all this while ? Not one word ! Hold ! 
that is a little too fast. He has seen one word on the subject 
of successive ordinations, and it shall be shown precisely what 
he has seen. The list claims—the first one does—that St. John 
ordained Polycarp, and it may be fairly presumed to claim 
that Polycarp ordained Pothinus, the first bishop in the see 
of Lyons. The list also claims that Augustin was ordained 
by Yirgilius, the twenty-fourth bishop in the see of Arles. 
It also claims that in the year 1787 Bishop Moore, of Canter¬ 
bury, ordained Bishop White, of the United States. This is 
all of every fact that is said or attempted to be said, proved 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 345 

or attempted to be proved, in these lists on the subject of 
ordinations. 

Is there one word said, or attempted to be said, implied or 
understood, by these lists on the subject of ordinations be¬ 
tween Pothinus and iEtherius, in the see of Lyons, or between 
Augustin and Moore, in that of Canterbury, five hundred and 
ninety years in the one case, and eleven hundred years in the 
other ? 

Not one word ! 

It is proved by these lists—admitting them to be correct— 
that these bishops, whose names are here mentioned, succeeded 
each other in the order in which they stand, in the respective 
sees where they are placed, in the office of bishop. That may 
all be true. We are not inquiring or disputing about who 
held the office of bishop at certain times in certain sees, and 
who succeeded them in office. We are inquiring about a list 
of successive ordinations. 

Lists of bishops who succeeded each other in office as suc¬ 
cessive incumbents is one thing, but a list of bishops who 
were the ordainers of each other is a totally different thing. 
These lists give or purport to give information on the former 
question, but not on the latter. But it is the latter question 
only that is before us for examination. 

Is it pretended by any, or claimed or imagined by any, 
that the bishops whose names stand in these lists were the or¬ 
dainers of each other? that successive ordinations came 
down through them ? 

Certainly not! This is not, cannot be pretended or 
claimed by any one acquainted with the history of the case. 
It is possible, it is admitted it is possible, that in mauy instan¬ 
ces the successor may have been ordained by his predecessor. 
That is, it is as likely, if he was alive, that he was his or- 
dainer, as any other bishop who chanced to be alive in the 
world at the time; and no more so. The circumstance of 
15* 


846 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


his preceding him in office does not by any means increase 
the probability that he was his ordainer. But it greatly de¬ 
creases the probability, from this consideration, that in every 
instance the old bishop was dead before the new one came into 
office ; and the dead bishop could not ordain his successor. 

The question before us is in regard to successive ordina¬ 
tions , and not in regard to successive incumbency in office. 

Let us inquire of this list—anywhere, no matter where— 
say at No. 70. Becket is put down at No. 70. Now, who 
ordained Becket ? The list tells us that Theobold preceded 
him in office as bishop of Canterbury. But that is not an 
answer to the question. It tells us, too, that William Corbell 
preceded Theobold; but all this gives no information on the 
subject of ordinations ; and we are only inquiring about or¬ 
dinations. Yerus, Julius, Ptolemy, Vocius, are put down in 
the see of Lyons, as Nos. 6, 7, 8, and 9. But who ordained 
them ? The list does not pretend to say. Nor can , nor docs , 
any man pretend to say or to know. 

These “ lists,” therefore, furnish us no more information 
on the subject of a succession of ordinations in the Church— 
admitting their history to be correct, of course, and supposing 
them to teach correctly where they purport to teach at all— 
than they do about a succession of battles in the Jewish war, 
when Jerusalem was taken by the Bomans, or of successive 
voyages round the world. 

For what purpose these famous lists were made and thus 
paraded, is not our present inquiry; and if it were, most 
likely it would be a fruitless inquiry. Why they are printed in 
books that treat of apostolic succession is not known. Cer¬ 
tain it is that they could scarcely be placed in a more inappro¬ 
priate situation. If by possibility they were made out and 
put in these places for the purpose of deceiving the unin¬ 
formed, there is but a single word that need be said, and 
that may as well be said in the language of another: 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


347 


- “ The bold impostor 

Looks not more silly when the cheat’s found out.” 

Now, is this view and this delineation of the character of 
these “ lists” assented to, or is it objected to, on the part of 
high-Churchmen ? 

It is assented to. For the reason, perhaps, that it cannot 
be objected to, it is fully acquiesced in. 

It chanced, not long since, that the writer was drawn into 
a debate on this subject with two distinguished high-Church¬ 
men, George S. Yerger and William C. Smedes, Esqrs., edi¬ 
tors of a high-Church paper in Mississippi. Mr. Yerger is 
one of the most distinguished lawyers in the United States. 
Mr. Smedes is one of the most distinguished lawyers in the 
South. They are both thoroughly read in high-Church prin¬ 
ciples. Mr. Yerger, as a bold and close and logical writer on 
this subject, is believed to have no superior among those 
whose writings have been published in this country or in 
England. 

In the course of the debate the following proposition was 
made: 

“I now propose to you, that if you will produce a list of 
names, which you will say is entitled to some reasonable his¬ 
toric credit, and which purports to show an unbroken suc¬ 
cession of ordinations, from one ordained person to another, 
since the time of the apostles, I will give up the argument, 
knock under and retire.”—End of Apostolic Succession, una¬ 
bridged, page 23. 

Again: “If you will produce a list of bishops, showing an 
t unbroken succession of ordinations/ I am done. I have 
never seen such a list. I do not believe it is in print. We 
have many lists of bishops, published by Bishop Green 
and others ) not one of which, however, so far as I have seen, 
purports to be a list of successive ordinations. They are only 
lists of incumbents in office. 



848 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


“1 asked for a list of bishops who were ordained, not ‘ by 
their immediate predecessors,’ in the same diocese, but by 
anybody. I asked, and still ask, for a consecutive list of 
bishops who were ordained at all , so as to show a succession 
of ordinations. Produce such a list, from any thing you will 
say is history, and I am done. I beg that this point may not 
be evaded. Do not offer me a list of bishops who held office 
successively , in lieu of a list who were ordained successively. 
Let this issue be met fairly, or let it be acknowledged that 
you have no list of successive ordinations. This is a vital 
point.”—See pages 34, 35. 

We have the answer on page 44, as follows : 

“As no one who has written on this subject has, to our 
knowledge, intimated that such a list as Mr. Abbey demands 
exists, we say it is an attempt to present a false issue , when 
he makes the demand, pronounces it a vital point, and insists 
that it shall not be evaded. He knew, we knew, every one 
familiar with the subject knows, that no such list existed or 
could be produced.” 

The gentleman’s own italics are carefully preserved. 

Again, page 117 : “ The admission that there is no list of 
successive ordinations to the episcopal office, by which is 
meant, no list reaching from the present back to apostolic 
days, which shows what bishops ordained each bishop in the 
list, fills Mr. Abbey with wonder, and falls, he thinks, with 
crushing effect on the ears and hopes of high-Churchmen.” 
Page 118 : “ It” (the succession of ordinations) “ has nothing 
to do with lists of bishops.” 

I have redeemed my pledge. The only testimony ever 
pretended to be adduced in support of the fact of successive 
ordinations is these celebrated lists. We examine these lists, 
and find that they do not relate to the question in issue. 
They only claim to relate to the question of successive incum¬ 
bency in the office of bishop and archbishop in several sees. 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


349 


But that question is entirely foreign to the one in hand. We 
call upon their champions for an explanation of these lists, 
and they give us no explanation at all, but frankly confess, 
“ There is no list of ordinations.” So the question ends. 

It is remarkable indeed, it is marvellous, that these “lists 
of bishops” have been paraded all over England and the 
United States, and published here and there and everywhere, 
in high-Church controversies on this subject, as evidence of 
successive ordinations, when they do not, when properly un¬ 
derstood, relate to the question in issue in the remotest man¬ 
ner. And it is strange, also, that they have so long passed 
current for testimony on the question. So far as I know, 
non-prelatical writers have heretofore met them by denying 
their historic correctness. But I see nothing to be gained by 
proving their historic incorrectness, because, true or untrue, 
they do not relate to the question in controversy. And, 
moreover, there are few historic questions a thousand or two 
thousand years old which may not be brought forward with 
some show of authenticity. 

We leave this subject with these two simple concluding 
observations: The theory of apostolic succession is sup¬ 
ported by nothing in the Scriptures, and only by the flimsiest 
drapery imaginable out of them ) and the fact of an actual 
succession is supported, plainly and confessedly, by nothing 
at all. 


s 


350 THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


PART FOUR. 

Culmntif al Gkdttsiimuss. 


CHAPTER I. 

CONSISTENCY OF DENOMINATIONAL DIFFERENCES. 

Whatever is true, either in theory or practice, must har¬ 
monize with the constitution and condition of mankind. 
That which is true in itself is congruous with every thing 
else that is true. 

Christianity is true; but its truth is by no means superior 
to any other truth. It claims only to be plainly, simply, and 
rationally true in its theory and practice. It harmonizes 
with man’s moral and mental make and mechanism precisely 
in the same way that other truths do. It exercises no con¬ 
trol over the curious structure of man’s mental frame. God 
has not, either in religion or in any thing else, disturbed, or 
in the least degree interfered with the constitution of man 
as it was first established. 

The mind of man bears the same relation—ought to bear 
the same relation—-to religion as to any other practical sys¬ 
tem. The trueness of religion does not by any means, in the 
least degree, tend to relieve the mind of man from any diffi¬ 
culties or embarrassments it is likely to meet with in philo- 



THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


351 


sophic or scientific investigation. It does not assist man in 
understanding its philosophy, in unravelling and discerning 
its scientific phenomena, any more than the truth of any 
other system that is true leads or tends to such results. 

We must not confound the theory of religion with its expe¬ 
rience. We are of course now speaking of the former. The 
theory of religion resides in the intellect and expatiates in the 
judgment. The experience of religion is developed in the 
heart and roams in the feelings. 

The philosophy of religion, its doctrines, its simplicities, its 
complexities, its plainness, its mysteries, its extended and 
varied scheme, its unity, its all, of phase and character, is 
presented to the mind of man with the same advantages and 
disadvantages of any other true practical system. It stands 
upon the common platform of simple, practical truth, and 
claims no higher position. 

It is, then, as likely that men will differ in their judgment 
respecting religion, or respecting many things pertaining to 
religion, as in respect to any other practical system of science 
or philosophy. Men are as fallible when thinking and judg¬ 
ing about religion as when thinking and judging about any 
thing else. They are as liable to err in judgment respecting 
religion—that is, respecting things pertaining to religion—as 
respecting any thing else that admits of difference of opinion. 

Men are likewise as liable to prejudice and prepossession 
respecting religion as any thing else. These prejudices and 
prepossessions may grow out of various relations and circum¬ 
stances. They may find their origin in national affinities, or 
affinities respecting language, or family, or other preferences 
or interests. Differences of civil government, or of systems 
of education, or political economy, may superinduce them. 

And from a point of divergence, no matter what may have 
occasioned such divergence, such is the variety of mental 
structure, that it is impossible to foresee where the advocates of 


352 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


different sentiments may find themselves, with respect to each 
other, after a while. 

But all this while truth is the only fundamental principle 
in all the world of mind and of morals. Error, the only com¬ 
petitor of truth, is at once the progenitor and the progeny of 
error, and can never become, or answer in the place of, truth. 
The farther it is pursued, the deeper and the more dangerous 
the error becomes, and the farther, and still farther, we find 
ourselves from the truth. True religion leads to life : false 
religion leads to death. 

These philosophic axioms are, perhaps, objected to upon 
the ground that they forestall denominational differences, and 
interfere with the natural exercise of private judgment; or 
if they do not, they render salvation impracticable. 

The argument is this : 

If we are absolutely and unconditionally bound to find out 
and pursue the one right wag, amidst a hundred conflicting- 
opinions and sectarian views, then, who can be saved ? Here, 
they say, is the Methodist: he tells you this is the path of 
true Christianity—these ,and those are the true doctrines. 
The Presbyterian says, No: these and those are the correct 
exposition of God's word, and compose the true plan of Chris¬ 
tian life. And the Episcopalian says, No : these are the true 
doctrines. And the Baptist says here, and the New School 
man says here, and the Cumberland says here, etc. And they 
gravely ask us what a plain, honest inquirer after truth is to 
do amidst these conflicting sentiments. He is bound to find 
the right way, or be damned ! Does God require every man 
to be a critical judge ? 

Thus the argument is, that before Christians can consistently 
ask other men to come and join them in the promotion of 
Christianity, they must themselves present a common plat¬ 
form of faith and practice. And until they do so, the ob¬ 
jector asks, What is there for me to join ? How do I know I 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


353 


am joining Christianity , when all the sects in the wond but 
one are opposed to the doctrines I espouse ? 

And thus the idea is, that, of course, all denominations but 
one are wrong, for two antagonists cannot both be right. 

And the conclusion from this argument is, on the one 
hand, with the man of the world, that, as a consistent man, 
he will not join any sect until they first settle all these diffi¬ 
culties, and thus show to men what the Christianity is into 
which they invite others. And the bigoted sectarian cries 
out that he has imbibed a spark of infallibility, or has drunk 
at a fountain of some kind that will answer him the same end— 
that he is right , and of course everybody else wrong. 

The first of these arguments, as used by the men of the 
world, we will dispose of in this chapter ) the latter, as used 
by the narrow-minded sectary, will be reserved for more 
leisure. 

The man of the world contends that Christians cannot con¬ 
sistently invite others to come and join them, until they first 
agree among themselves upon a common platform of faith and 
practice—until they settle all differences among themselves. 
He says that under these circumstances of sectarian division 
and difference of creed, he could at best but join & party, but 
it is a hundred chances to one he is not embracing true and 
proper Christianity. And so he cannot join either party 
until he can have some reasonable assurance that, in so doing, 
he is espousing Christianity with a proper creed. And so he is 
consistent in staying away. 

This argument can be tested by comparing it with others of 
a like kind. And in this way we can ascertain with unerring 
certainty whether it is or is not put forth in good faith. For 
if these are truly the man’s principles, then he acts upon them 
in all analogous cases. 

Let us look at the argument in its application to educa¬ 
tion. Here are the advocates and promoters of education; 


354 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


and they propose to others to come and join them in educat¬ 
ing the youth of the world. I propose to join in this enter¬ 
prise ; but before I do so, I look at those already engaged in 
it, and find that they disagree greatly among themselves. One 
is in favor of this system, and another of that. One says a 
child should be put to school at three years old; another says, 
No, at five; and another says, No, at ten. One is in favor of 
using these and those text-books; and another says, No, these 
and those are the only proper ones. One party is in favor of 
public schools supported by a common fund. And other par¬ 
ties oppose this system, and espouse some one of half a dozen 
other different kinds. 

So, to be consistent, I stand aloof from the whole. I can 
educate neither myself nor my child until the advocates of 
education agree among themselves upon a common platform 
of faith and practice. This is the argument. 

Or, look at civil government. Here are the advocates 
and promoters of civil government; and I propose to join 
them, and advocate and practice civil government too. But 
here I meet the same difficulty. This party is in favor of 
monarchy, and this advocates aristocracy, and this republican¬ 
ism, with a dozen or twenty modifications to each. A hundred 
sects, a hundred parties, all disagreeing among themselves. 

And so, of course, to be consistent, I can neither do nor be 
any thing with regard to government, until all the advocates 
of civil government agree among themselves, settle these dif¬ 
ferences, and present a common faith and practice. This is the 
argument. 

And the advocates of industry are in the same awkward 
and unphilosopliic condition. One espouses this calling, and 
another that. They are cut up into a hundred sects and 
parties. 

Agriculturists also are split up into numberless divis¬ 
ions. Few of them agree as to the proper time, the proper 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


355 


weather, and the proper circumstances, in which to plough, to 
plant, to hoe, and to harvest, in all the details of these several 
branches. 

And if we go to the sciences —except those which are 
called positive sciences, which do not admit, in the nature of 
the case, of deferences of opinion—we fare no better. Physi¬ 
cians are divided into parties. One says, in a given case, 
give calomel; another says, No, calomel will kill now : give an 
emetic. A third says, No, give cold water. A fourth advo¬ 
cates the lancet; a fifth, homoeopathy; a sixth, a tenth, a 
hundredth, this, that, and the other. 

And our philosophic man can never, in any case, do any 
thing until they all agree ! 

Who differ with each other, in their respective vocations, 
more than lawyers, or politicians, or legislators, or merchants, 
or navigators, or military commanders, or the incumbents of 
the throne, or the kitchen, or the knights of the senate, or 
the shoe-shop ? 

In what theoretic and practical system in human life do 
men agree in belief and action ? And what is the philo¬ 
sophic condition of our consistent man, who stands still in all 
these various departments until other men harmonize ? 

He cannot wear clothes, because all men do not dress alike. 
He cannot eat his dinner, because all do not choose the same 
dishes. He cannot live, because there is such a diversity of 
sentiment as to the best mode of living! 

The plain, simple truth is, that such is the constitution of 
man,—I need not be inquired of why it is so, for I do not 
know,—I was not consulted in the matter; but the truth is, 
that such is, in fact, the character of men’s constitution, that 
in their social relation they never harmonize on the details 
of any practical system. The mind, once set agoing, is con¬ 
stantly on the stretch after improvement; after advantage; 
after a better way to accomplish the same end. When the 


856 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


mind of man becomes quiescent, then there will be no more 
differences of opinion among men, either in relation to the 
matters of this world or the next; and then Mr. Volney's 
argument on this point will have some sense in it, and his 
memory may be rescued from an oblivious lunacy. 

But after all, notwithstanding men disagree so much in 
matters of detail, in every practical system, yet it is generally 
only in matters of detail that they disagree. In regard to 
matters which they account fundamental in any system, men 
generally agree tolerably well. In truth, in matters which 
are really fundamental they rarely disagree. 

No advocate of education dispenses with books, teachers, or 
industry on the part of the pupil. No political economist dis¬ 
penses with legislation, judicature, or the execution of laws. 
No farmer repudiates fencing and ploughing, or plants corn 
under the snows of December. 

And in relation to the differences among Christians with 
regard to Christianity, this may be said with emphasis, that 
there is this day less of difference of belief and practice 
among Christians with regard to Christianity than is found 
among any other class of persons in the world with regard to 
the details of belief and practice in their several spheres of 
operation : so that however obnoxious Christianity may be to 
Mr. Volney, or to any other beholder, because of its division 
into sects, denominations, and parties, the whole world beside 
is more obnoxious to the same beholder because of the very 
same objection. 

Nor does this view make the slightest compromise with 
error. We have already said that error is always necessarily 
in immediate antagonism with truth. It is only error, and 
that continually. The farther it is pursued—any kind of 
error—the deeper and the deeper it leads its votary into worse 
and worse errors. This is the natural character and tendency 
of error, either in religion or in any thing else. 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


857 


But it is not every poison that kills outright at the first 
draft. Ninety-nine errors are only a disadvantage—a hin¬ 
drance—a clog—a drawback; and they operate with greater or 
less force, and more or less rapidly in their work of mischief. 
The hundredth one only, perhaps, it is that kills with direct 
and unerring certainty. Perhaps it is only one time in a 
hundred that the physician kills his own patient, that the 
navigator sinks his own vessel, or that the Christian loses his 
own soul. Of course in that erroneous act of killing , no 
matter how the error came about, the physician was not truly 
a physician, though generally in other acts he may have been. 
Nor in the act which resulted in the sinking of the vessel was 
the navigator truly a navigator, whatever may have been his 
general character. And just so of the Christian. However 
Christian he may have been generally, or at times, in that act, 
or those acts, either of faith or practice, which resulted in his 
ruin, he was not a Christian. 

Denominational differences, then, result from the nature of 
man’s constitution, and from the nature of a practical system 
—a system of belief and practice. 

The division of the Church into denominations results from 
an honest entertainment and avowal of different sentiments 
which are sure to arise among men who think. Differences 
of belief which classify men into denominations are those 
which arise upon points of supposed importance. But in 
reality, if men were more carefully and particularly classified 
according to their several differences of belief, in all cases we 
would find ten or twenty times the number of denominations 
which the Church appears to have. But men do not formally 
divide into parties except on points which are supposed to be 
of considerable comparative importance. 

The same laws, therefore, which govern this question out 
of the Church, as might naturally be expected, are found to 
govern it in the Church. 


358 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


CHAPTER II. 

POSITION OF POPERY. 

According to Popery, there can be no religious liberty. 
The Pope is infallible, and his dictum is the imperative law 
of God. Neither can there be any civil liberty, for infallibil¬ 
ity cannot be restricted to faith and practice respecting reli¬ 
gion merely, for that would not be infallibility. Religion and 
civil government are necessarily united. The ecclesiastical 
magistrate must, ex officio, be the civil magistrate, because an 
infallible religious government must necessarily be a perfect 
civil government; and to oppose his rule in the one case is as 
sinful as to oppose him in the other. 

Romanism is consistent in claiming infallibility for the 
Pope; because, if the line of Popes compose the channel of 
transmission through which Christ’s authority descends from 
him to men in successive ages, it must be an infallible chan¬ 
nel. It would be absurd to say that Christ’s authority, which 
is in itself infallibly true, and is, therefore, binding absolutely 
upon every man’s conscience, has descended to us through a 
fallible channel. The authority, if it be binding because 
divine, must be delivered to us through a divine, that is, an 
infallible channel. And so they say the Pope, being infallible, 
and having received authority from Christ, is capable of giving 
infallible instructions, and of uttering infallible authority 
to men. 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


359 


The morning of the sixteenth century was a morning of 
continuous clouds, of overcast sky, and the not unfrequent 
mutterings of the thunder of discontent, of priestly arrogance, 
humble subjection, and iron rule. Every thing is fallible but 
the Pope and his ministers, and, therefore, the Pope rules 
and must rule every thing. 

There was no Church but the Pope’s Church; there was no 
Christianity but the Pope’s Christianity; there was no Chris¬ 
tian ministry but the Pope’s Christian ministry; there was no 
truth that the Pope did not sanction, because he was at once 
the depositary and administrator of truth; that is to say, he 
was the vicegerent of Christ. 

There was, of course, no place here to wedge in an observa¬ 
tion respecting ecclesiastical exclusiveness, because Popery was 
the standard. Every thing outside of the Pope was, for that 
reason, outside of Christianity. And the enclosures of Popery, 
that is, the enclosures of Christianity, were wherever the 
Pope, from time to time, chose to say they were. 

Many persons erroneously consider the errors of Popery to 
consist in her worship of saints, her veneration of images, her 
transubstantiation, her idolatrous mass, her trade in indul¬ 
gences, her elevation of tradition over the Scriptures, her 
auricular confession, etc., etc. But these are only the fruits 
of her one great error—the claim to universal primacy; not 
the primacy of the Pope particularly, but the primacy or 
supremacy of the Church. Church exclusiveness leads to 
many foolish and hurtful lusts, as we shall see hereafter. 

The great error of Popery is, that she claims something in 
her bosom, some right, or privilege, or dignity, or power, or 
superiority, which inures to her, or inheres in her in some 
way other than by the direct impartation of the Scriptures. 

At the Reformation there was a reformation of the Church; 
that is, there was a return from an ecclesiasticism to the Bi¬ 
ble. The Reformation was not merely a reform in external 


360 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


Christian manners—a lopping off of certain ecclesiastical in¬ 
decencies, falsehoods, and corruptions, and a commencement 
on the part of the Reformers of a purer worship. If this 
had been all, the Reformation would have been forgotten years 
ago. A mere reform in external manners would, in all like¬ 
lihood, have passed away with the Reformers themselves, if 
indeed it had not preceded them. The Reformation was a 
return from priestcraft to the Bible — a repudiation of the 
ecclesiastical authority of men , and a taking up of the Bible 
as the only binding law. The Reformation protested that 
the name of Rome on a man’s forehead did not make a man 
a Christian; but that Christianity consisted in a personal at¬ 
tachment to Jesus Christ. The Reformation declared that 
Divine association, and not ecclesiastical association, made a 
man a Christian. 

Popery is still where she was. Her corruptions and manners 
may be dark, darker, very dark, or quite black : it matters 
but little. She is Popery so long as she claims and maintains 
a human religion, or a religion outside of the Bible. 

Many providential circumstances have tended to divide the 
Christian Church into different denominations. This has been 
brought about partly by the interference of civil government, 
partly by intolerance and ecclesiastical oppression, and partly 
by differences of belief on doctrinal questions. 

But Popery is a stereotyped falsehood, and in its very nature 
forbids an inquiry into its claims. In the nature of the case 
it cannot be reformed, because it cannot be examined or looked 
into with the view of ascertaining whether it is or is not an 
error. Romanism is not a creed ; it is not a scheme or sys¬ 
tem of religion which men believe. Its adherents are not 
its adherents because they thinh it comes nearest to, or is 
most consonant with, Christian truth. To believe , or to thinh, 
implies the exercise of the judgment in the choice between 
hypotheses. And Rome repudiates nothing more stoutly than 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


361 


tlie exercise, in much or in little, of the judgment, in matters 
pertaining to religion. So that it is a great mistake to sup¬ 
pose that Romanists differ with Christians in opinion about 
religion. They can, in the nature of the case, have no 
opinion about religion; for an opinion questions and decides 
with regard to the infallibility of the Pope ) and this ques¬ 
tioning and deciding is the exercise of men’s judgment, 
which is the rankest of all anti-Popery. 

Romanism, according to its most fundamental principle, in 
the very nature of its vitality, performs without thinking, and 
adheres without choice. 

Papists cannot, therefore, be said to be exclusive, in the 
sense in which this term is applied to Christians. They are 
exclusive of unavoidable necessity: they could not be other¬ 
wise and remain Papists. Christians are exclusive — when 
they are so at all—from choice. They are Christians from 
choice, and they believe what they believe as the result of 
the free exercise of judgment. 

If Papists were all really and truly Papists, or Roman 
Catholics, as they are sometimes very improperly called, they 
would be disposed of in a very few words in this chapter. 
Nothing is more opposed to Christianity than true, genuine 
Popery. It not only subverts every Christian principle, but 
assumes, itself, to be Christianity. Romanism is purely, 
wholly, and essentially priestcraft. But there are many per¬ 
sons in this country, and some elsewhere, who have caught a 
little of the spirit of civil and religious liberty, and who are, 
therefore, if religious, religious in spite of their nominal re¬ 
ligious principles. Men who think about religion, or in 
regard to it, are not true Papists. Men who serve servilely, 
according to the commands of priests, are Papists, whether 
they are ostensibly classed with them or no. 

All true and genuine priestcraft is true and genuine Popery, 

16 


362 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


whether it has or has not an ostensible connection with Ro¬ 
man Catholicism. 

The true line, therefore, between Popery and Christianity 
is this : the one is religious exclusiveness, necessarily , innate, 
and primary, without the process of thinking, or the liberty 
of thinking, in order to become so—Christianity implies an 
independent process of thinking in order to become a Chris¬ 
tian. 

All exclusiveness or intolerance is anti-Christian; but 
there is a difference between that which is the result of think¬ 
ing, and therefore amounts to belief, and that which arises 
from the mere naked dictum of priests. 

We have seen that men disagree in the details of all prac¬ 
tical systems; but they disagree only as the result of the ex¬ 
ercise of their judgment. Not so with Popery: Papists ad¬ 
here without belief. 

The constitution of the human mind, which was made be¬ 
fore religion was, is such that men do not think alike on any 
subject, except in matters which are primary and fundamental. 

The advocates of civil government, as we have seen, differ 
on a thousand points of policy. Some are monarchists, some 
are aristocrats, some are republicans. And among any class, 
say republicans, what is more common than differences of 
opinion on many important points? Yet all, in the one case, 
are in favor of civil government: all, in the other case, are 
in favor of republican government. 

And just so with the advocates of industry. All follow 
the same fundamental principles, yet they are divided into 
sects and parties. One is a farmer, one a tradesmen, one a 
navigator, and one an artist. Agriculturists differ among 
themselves with regard to a thousand matters of detail—im¬ 
portant matters, too—yet no one violates the primary principles. 

It must be supposed, then, that if, in matters of religion, 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


363 


men are left free to the exercise of individual judgment, there 
will be something like the same degree of difference of sentiment 
in religion, as in other subjects of human thought and prac¬ 
tice. If it were not so, the question of religion would form 
a singular exception, in thought and opinion, in the human 
constitution. 

And what is more natural than that persons whose belief 
runs in these and those channels, should affiliate in the use 
and exercise of an exclusive ecclesiastical jurisdiction ? It 
could scarcely be otherwise. Oneness in jurisdiction and ex¬ 
ternal government would by no means argue a catholicity in 
faith and doctrine; for true catholicity can only be where 
there is the largest freedom of opinion and liberty of belief. 

To say, then, that the position of Romanism and the re¬ 
formation of the Church, gave rise to a wider range of deno¬ 
minational Christianity, is only to say that it gave rise to the 
natural results of religious freedom. 

The principles of Christianity were as perfectly known and 
as perfectly taught in the early ages of the Church as they 
ever can be; and yet there are many matters of deduction, 
conclusion, and inference, making up the philosophy of reli¬ 
gion, in regard to which the world at the present day—the 
wisest portions of it—may be said to be far from a state of con¬ 
summate sapience. 

What the age or state of the world will be, when all ques¬ 
tions of religious belief shall be settled —when all the primary 
truths of Christianity shall be run out to their ultimate con¬ 
clusions, and a settled policy shall grace a universal harmony— 
it is impossible to tell. One thing is very certain, however: 
before that time comes the world will undergo many very 
great changes in moral and intellectual progress. 

The thing which answers in the place of belief in Romanism 
is regulated by priests and popes—prepared to hand for indi- 


364 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


vidual use ; and hence its sameness. Among Protestants men 
believe what they think is true. 

This is believed to be the true position of Popery with re¬ 
gard to denominational Christianity. It has philosophically no 
part or lot in the matter, because philosophically it has no 
part or lot in Christianity. 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


365 


CHAPTER III. 

CREEDS. 

For the lack of a tribunal of acknowledged jurisdiction, it 
will, perhaps, never be decided whether Pope Leo X. excom¬ 
municated Luther, or whether Luther excommunicated Pope 
Leo X. Excommunication is a very doubtful power. Its 
functions may be real, or they may be entirely illusory. There 
are at this time in the United States about eleven or twelve 
gentlemen who claim the prerogative of excommunication, 
and who excommunicate, or think they excommunicate, all 
the Christians, nearly three millions in number, in the United 
States, except the members of the Protestant Episcopal 
Church, one of the very smallest denominations in the coun¬ 
try. But the excommunicating power of these few high- 
Church bishops, nearly half the bishops of that Church, is 
regarded by many as of very doubtful tenure. 

To say, or to think , that certain Christians are excommuni¬ 
cated, does not always put them beyond the pale of Christ’s 
true Church. 

In 1733, the vote of one man, though he claimed not to be 
a pope, but only a moderator, expelled from the Established 
Church of Scotland, Mr. Erskine, and his associate “seceders.” 
But the excommunicated clergymen replied: “No, brethren, 
we and our respective flocks are not expelled from the Church; 
we are only a coordinate branch with yourselves of a common 


36G THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 

Christianity.” And Christendom, with its Bible, has sanc¬ 
tioned their decision, rather than that of the casting vote of 
expulsion given by the moderator of that highly respectable 
Church. 

Excommunication, whether written or spoken, official or 
social, is a thing better understood in these days than in the 
past, when it was chiefly or wholly in the keeping of popes, 
and kings, and parliaments. The Bible is in the hands of 
the people, and it teaches that excommunication can only 
result from a proper adjudication upon charges of unbelief or 
immorality . 

A man who believes in Christ, and evidences his faith by 
a proper profession and blameless walk among men, has a 
'right to a place in the Church of Christ, by the law of Christ, 
which no man may repeal or despise. 

The disadvantages of denominationalism result only from 
the prejudices of misguided zealots. They excommunicate 
each other, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of 
God. 

The advantages of denominational Christianity might, it 
would seem, be supposed to be as great as similar differences 
of sentiment upon other subjects. It would be best in but few 
instances in practical life for men to think and act precisely 
alike. The diversity of mind, in its structure and develop¬ 
ment, corresponds to the diversity of life and circumstance 
and condition around us. 

A difference of creed does not argue a difference of reli¬ 
gion, nor prove that the adherents to either are fundamentally 
wrong. 

Neither do creeds, as is argued by some, tend to cripple 
the operations of the mind, or stultify thought, or fetter 
genius. Creeds do not require men to think so and so, 
according to their prescriptions. This, in the very nature 
of the case, cannot be done. That which requires men to 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 367 

think, or induces them to do so, requires them to exercise 
their free judgment, and govern themselves accordingly. 

The truth in relation to religion should be left as free as 
that which relates to astronomy or geology. To fetter and 
hamper the mind, and chain it to a set of rules and pre¬ 
arranged dogmas respecting religion, is as unphilosophic 
as it would be to do the same thing in relation to astronomy 
or geology. Let the mind be free. To chain it is to kill it. 

But are creeds chains and fetters upon the mind ? They 
are so regarded only by those whose own minds are chained 
and fettered by sectarian prejudice. All man-made religion, 
either for home or general use, will not pay for the paper. 

What is a creed*/ It is a synoptic explication which a 
man gives to certain passages of Scripture. If it be written, 
then it is a written creed. If not, then it is an unwritten 
creed. Every man who reads the Bible to understand it, 
except a Papist, has, necessarily, a creed. The manner in 
which he understands these passages, by the free, untrammelled 
exercise of his judgment, is his creed. If two of us under¬ 
stand these passages alike, then, very well, we have the same 
creed. If not, then we differ. 

But about what do we differ? Do we differ upon the 
question whether Jesus Christ is the Saviour of the world ? 
whether belief in Christ is necessary to salvation? whether 
the Bible is the word of G-od ? whether true religion en¬ 
joins repentance, and prayer, and holy living? No: we do 
not differ about any of these things. Then it is in a very 
modified sense that it can be said we differ about religion. 

A late writer against the use of creeds—that is, against all 
creeds but his own —writes as follows: 

u The idea of supporting truth by authority is preposterous 
and absurd. It implies a misconception of its nature, and of 
the correlative laws of the human mind. Authority can give 
to truth no valuable support. Its effect is only to embarrass 


368 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


and hinder its progress. It would not be less preposterous to 
teach mathematics, chemistry, and philosophy by authority, 
than religion. Mathematics, chemistry, and philosophy, if 
taught at all, must be taught by their essential evidences: so 
must religion, both natural and revealed.” 

All of which is very correct; but it is a little singular that 
the same writer, in the same volume, gives us four hundred 
pages of his creed, in which he well-nigh, if not quite, ex¬ 
communicates the whole of Christendom who do not subscribe 
to his views of Congregational Church government. 

Those who cry the loudest against creeds, are not unfre- 
quently the most intolerant in the use of them. In truth, a 
rule against creeds is, in the very nature of the case, intol¬ 
erant. It is perhaps the most oppressive creed found among 
Christians. It forbids them to think, and say what they think. 
They have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. 

Plain Bible Christians, no matter what may be their creed, 
or to what denomination they may belong, extend the same 
toleration to others which they expect and claim for them¬ 
selves. 

All men are bound, by the imperative law of God, to live 
and die in the Church of Christ; but all men are not bound 
—could not be bound—to think alike in all things. 

A Bible Christian who is not troubled with bigotry, is not 
so peremptorily in favor of even his own creed, as to place 
it above and in antagonism with all others, under all circum¬ 
stances. He is in favor of his own creed, practically, because 
he believes that he could be a better Christian, enjoy religion 
with more composure and satisfaction, and be more useful in 
a Church with that creed, than in another; but he will advise 
a young convert, after examining his circumstances, education, 
family, religious opportunities, etc., to attach himself to a 
Church with a creed differing from his own. He will advise 
this person to be an Episcopalian, that one to be a Baptist, 


TIIE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 369 

the other to be a Presbyterian, a Methodist, etc. All other 
things being equal, he advises in favor of his own Church. 

Any thing short of this is bigotry in theory, and intolerant 
exclusiveness in practice. 

Creeds are opinions, worn and used as other opinions are. 
They are neither fetters to bind men, nor marks which distin¬ 
guish men as having an exclusive right to live. A Christian 
with a creed differing from our own, bears the same relation 
to us which subsists between two fellow-laborers who work 
somewhat differently, or with implements somewhat different. 
In most of the affairs of this world, the same end may be 
accomplished by different means. There is one mode, how¬ 
ever, which, in given circumstances, is always preferable. 
The machine modified so as to work with least friction, is 
best; but this does not argue that the man who works to some 
disadvantage, as we think, must be beheaded. 

But after all, a remark must be by no means omitted, for 
its consideration is important. This is it: The differences and 
disagreements which appear to subsist among Christians of 
different denominations, are nine-tenths seeming or imaginary, 
and one-tenth real. Perhaps, in truth, the disproportion is 
oftentimes much greater than this. 

These disagreements, if looked at upon the surface, as they 
are mostly by most men, seem to cause quite a ripple; but if 
examined into a little deeper, with care and candor, the most 
of the difficulty is most likely to disappear. There are secta¬ 
rian dialects, modes and habits of expression, favorite phrases 
and set words, very generally made use of in these controver¬ 
sies, which make up a very large portion of their substance. 
The natural bias of education, party attachments, and pride 
of opinion, have also much to do in the matter. Let all these 
things be fairly and carefully subtracted, and the real differ¬ 
ence of sentiment remaining will be found to be but small. 

For instance, the advocate of election and decrees believes 
16 * 


370 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


that any particular, specially designated man, may be saved if 
he will; and how much more does his opponent, of free 
grace, require? 

The advocate of final perseverance admits that, in the case 
of any particular, specially designated man, honest and faith¬ 
ful striving is an indispensable condition of salvation. 

Hannah More, or somebody else, tells a story of two knights 
who were about to fight a duel upon a dispute as to the color 
of a shield which hung in the distance; one affirming that it 
was silver, and the other that it was gold, and both relying 
upon the testimony of their own eyes. A friend stepped up 
and requested them to change places, which they did; and 
immediately discovered that both were right. It was one side 
silver, and the other gold. 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


371 


CHAPTER IV. 

PERSECUTION. 

All men readily agree that religious “ persecution” is 
utterly unchristian, and abhorrent to all correct feeling and 
principle. Every living man cries out against it. None are 
more opposed to it than the most violent persecutors that ever 
lived. The very sword, as it reeks with the blood of its 
victim, cries out against the impiety and impolicy of persecu¬ 
tion. The crackling fagots of the vilest fanaticism that fury 
ever fanned into flame, mingle with the groans and prayers 
of dying saints their anathemas against the wickedness and 
intolerance of persecution. 

None, at this day, speak or write more in opposition to 
persecution than Romish priests, and Romish popes, and 
Romish fanatics; and yet, does not the whole broad face of 
the earth convert itself into a mouth for the universe, and 
testify that persecution is practically a leading religious tenet 
of Romanism ? At the same time that persecuting Rome 
reels and gloats in hellish revelry around the stake and the 
scaffold of the “heretic,” she mingles her pious sympathies 
for the “ unfortunate’’ subjects of her piety, with her livelier 
devotions at the shrine of those martyrs of olden time, whose 
cause she espouses and whose death she worships. 

Persecution is a strange vixen. None bawl so loud or so 
furious against persecution as she. None fear it, or dread it, 
or abhor it so much. 


372 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


But what is persecution ? and how do we discriminate be¬ 
tween persecution, and resistance against persecution? Now, 
Home never persecutes anybody. No, no; no, no; not she. 
Innocent creature, she only, when compelled to, resists perse¬ 
cution against herself, when assaulted with it on the part of 
others! 

But although Rome may chance, at the present time, to be 
the high-priest of persecution, there are, out of Rome, not a 
few low priests of the same profession, quite as innocent, and 
forbearing, and pious as she; and who would be quite as 
readily shocked, whose modesty would be quite as readily out¬ 
raged, at the appearance'of a truant thought which would 
seem to suppose them guilty of the vile crime of persecution. 
For what could more likely so shock the world as to cause it 
to turn backward upon its axis, than the escape of a sugges¬ 
tion that these wonderfully innocent and forbearing subjects 
of persecution and intolerance, should themselves be thought 
capable of the awful crime they have so peremptorily eschewed, 
and so long and so piously resisted ? 

Let us just step into the vestibule of Rome a moment, 
and be almost melted down with her piety, long-suffering, 
and consideration. All is the most profound and the most 
pious devotion. Religion is her daily bread. She cannot 
breathe freely without a cross, or something like it, constantly 
in view. She bemoans and deplores the sins and the way¬ 
wardness of the “ heretic” world around her, with a devotion 
which puts disinterestedness to the blush, and would make 
philanthropy hie away for very shame. 

The cause of her pious weepings and distress is the heretic 
condition of this abominably heretic world, and her perplexity 
and uneasiness are owing to the difficulties she sees in the 
conversion of the world to the Church. 

Of course, there is no salvation out of the Church —out 
of the mass—out of the confessional—out of the priests—out 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 373 

v 

of the anointings. The salvation of the world is committed 
to them , and the world must be saved. They would not per¬ 
secute men'—no, not for the world; but then men must be set 
right in regard to religion : they must be saved. And if one 
set of measures will not do, why, others must be resorted to. 
They do not punish them willingly, by any means, or for the 
sake of the punishment; but to save them : for the sake of 
their souls. Surely a man’s soul is of more value than a part 
or all of his flesh. They are not persecuting the man, by any 
means; they are only getting hold of his flesh, or his charac¬ 
ter, or his property, or whatever they can get hold of most 
securely to lead him to God, and religion, and safety. Men 
must be saved. 

And then, again, men not only neglect their own souls by 
living out of the Church , and away from the truth, but the 
very neglect of the Church, and her ordinances, and her 
whole paraphernalia of piety and religion, is itself an evil that 
must be abated in some way. For that neglect gives a sort 
of license to others, and they to others, and so on; and so 
everybody will neglect the Church, and consequently their 
souls; and consequently the whole world will be lost. 

But this is not the one thousandth part of the evil. The 
greatest of all conceivable, and the most damnable of all 
damnable evils that the surface of the earth is capable of sup¬ 
porting, is, that men not only neglect the Church and the 
truth, and run away after Christ, or what they call religion, 
and get other men to go with them, but they undertake 
to believe, and get others to believe, things contrary to 
the teachings of our true, and immaculate, and infallible 
Church. 

In sober truth, persecution is by no means confined to 
Romanists or to bygone days. It is in a thrifty, growing 
condition here amongst us every day. It is not wielded by 
the arm of civil authority here in our own country, nor is it 


374 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


carried to the extent of civil disfranchisement, confiscation, 
rack, fagot, or sword. 

Many persons fancy themselves opposed to religious perse¬ 
cution, when they are only opposed to some particular fea¬ 
tures or phases in the system. But the only rational opposi¬ 
tion to it, most assuredly, must lie against the principle itself. 

Religious toleration does not oppose persecution because 
the adverse party has or has not imbibed this or that true or 
erroneous religious doctrine, or set of doctrines. If a man 
may be persecuted in case his religious doctrines be wrong, 
then who may not be persecuted? and who is to be the judge 
of right or wrong doctrines ? 

Neither is persecution to be objected to upon the ground 
that the civil authority has no right to interfere in religious 
matters. Perhaps it has not, or it may have a right to 
interfere only to a certain extent; but what has that to do 
with the principle of persecution? Is the doctrine, then, 
that civil persecution is wrong, but that social persecution is 
right ? or that ecclesiastical persecution may be properly 
inflicted ? 

And it is equally unphilosophic and erroneous to object to 
persecution upon the ground that it is inflicted with severity. 
Persecution is not wrong because it is cruel. It is cruel, if 
cruel at all, because it is wrong. The degree with which 
religious punishment is inflicted is not a proper subject of ani¬ 
madversion. The only question of note is in regard to the 
principle itself. 

Neither is persecution to be objected to upon the ground 
that it is revengeful or malicious in its character. For it is 
not necessarily so. And if it were, then the objection would 
lie, not against the thing itself, but against the motives which 
lead to its practice. In truth, it cannot be said that revenge 
or malice are usually the motives or feelings which kindle the 
fires of persecution. 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


375 


The wildest and bloodiest frenzy with which Home was 
ever crazed, in her most beastly ecclesiastical drunkenness, in 
fastening the stake, or in wielding the rack or the axe, was 
not the result of malice or revenge against the unfortunate 
victims of her insanity. It is not at all clear that in these 
hellish scenes of blood and death, her protestations that she 
was acting with a view to the good of mankind in a religious 
sense were hypocritical. In many instances those engaged 
in these scenes could have had no bitter feelings of personal 
dislike against their tortured victims. They acted from a fool¬ 
ish and insane notion of religious obligation. 

They took up a notion, first that heretics ought to be pun¬ 
ished to death, because they ought; and, secondly, that the 
propagation of heretical errors must be prevented, by mild 
means if possible, but it must he done. 

It is a great error also to suppose that that persecution is 
worst, most dangerous to religion, to the peace of society, and 
is the most severely to be reprehended, which inflicts the 
severest punishments. This is a very popular error, and a 
very great one. On the contrary, it is doubted very much 
whether those systems of persecution are not the worst, the 
most dangerous, and the most to be reprehended, which inflict 
no civil disability or physical punishment at all. At least, so 
far as society is concerned, and it may be regarded irrespective 
of religion , it is believed that that system of persecution is 
most tolerable where the iuquisition holds an unrestrained 
sovereignty, with no ministers but the stake, the rack, and the 
scaffold. Where this is the case, and where there is no 
escape from the inquisition’s utmost fury and most summary 
vengeance , there is perhaps a less amount of persecution than 
where it is carried on in a milder form. Because, under cir¬ 
cumstances of such peremptory and savage rigor, there is 
found but little for the inquisition to do. 

Is there more—I mean a greater quantity —of persecution 


376 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


now in Italy tlian in the United States ? I doubt it. As to 
numbers, there is almost no comparison. Ten thousand per¬ 
sons are persecuted in this country, for one in Italy. In 
truth, there is not much of it in the latter country ; and if 
the laws were, if possible, ten-fold more rigorous there than 
they are, there would scarcely be a case once in a twelve- 
month. 

It is, perhaps, possible for the spirit of persecution to be 
carried to such an extent that the sceptre of intolerance will 
meet not the slightest resistance. It can, after a time, work 
its work, and then sit down in unquestioned sovereignty; and 
men will no more dream of thinking about religion, than 
about any other kind of rebellion in sight of or on the scaf¬ 
fold. 

Of course, under such circumstances, the ordinary means 
which are used for the elevation of the human mind, and the 
expansion of the human intellect, must be, and necessarily 
are, under the ban of proscription. For, if men are per¬ 
mitted to read, and education to rise an inch above the sur¬ 
face of the ground, a most powerful competitor is let loose 
against the inquisition. 

It is by no means true that persecution has failed to answer 
its purposes, and accomplish its ends. It is a philosophic and 
well-arranged system. Wherever it has been set a going 
upon its own native principles, it has accomplished its legiti¬ 
mate ends, in a greater or less degree, in proportion as it has 
wielded, or has failed to wield, its own instruments with 
sufficient external assistance. 

It has almost perfectly accomplished its purposes in Spain 
and Italy; and if it has not quite done so, it is not the fault 
of the genius and spirit of persecution, but because of the 
inadequacy of the means employed. And the same thing 
may be seen, on a smaller scale, in a great many little Spains 
and Italies in our own country. 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 377 

Let ecclesiastical exclusiveness in any sect, in any corner 
or neighborhood, become dominant, and an unceasing torrent 
of excommunication will soon make its mark upon the com¬ 
munity around. 

It of course works to disadvantage as the Bible and the 
printing-press come in its way; but still it may accomplish 
something. 

And although the exclusive party may not be dominant— 
nay, it may be greatly in the minority—still it can, in many 
ways of working, accomplish something. It can repress re¬ 
ligious thinking: it can propagate illiberality : it can foster 
and encourage exclusiveness : it can shame the timid into 
submission : it can beget ecclesiastical pride : it can encourage 
proscription : license arrogance, and pamper folly, in at least 
a few instances. In a thousand different languages it can 
cry out, “ Our Church is the Church: all else is heresy;” 
and by the multiplicity of its declarations, the sanctimonious¬ 
ness of its tone, the winnings of its sentimentalism, and the 
cut of its jib, it can accomplish something, though it may be 
but little, for its own dear natural father, the blustering hell¬ 
hound of Romish priestcraft and folly. 

All ecclesiastical racks —whether made of bars and ropes 
and saws, or of stakes and fagots, or red strait-jackets, or 
pictured flames upon the garments, or high-Church news¬ 
papers, or sermons of wholesale excommunication, or neigh¬ 
borhood clubs of bigotry, or “ We-are-the-Church” intoler¬ 
ance, or any other sort or kind of Church exclusiveness—are 
the natural children of the red prince inquisitorial in his 
illicit commerce with the brawling bad woman of Rome. 

There is no mingling of blood and of races here. He who 
persecutes for religion’s sake—either with the bull of Inno¬ 
cent, or Pius VII.; the royal signature of Frederick II.; 
the liberty of American freedom; the stifled press of pro- 


378 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


scription; the clerical arrogance of Tetzel, Pusey, Hook, or 
their transatlantic friends of our own city churches—they are 
all persecutors, kith and kin : they are the children of the same 
father and mother who live in Italy. They may persecute 
about Peter or the pope; about apostolic succession or baptis¬ 
mal succession; because of too much water or too little; the 
cause may be found here or there—they are, really and truly, 
officers of the inquisition. 

There is an essential difference between persecution and 
mere ecclesiastical contention and illiberality. The latter, 
to a greater or less extent, is censurable; it is always blame¬ 
worthy - but it does not amount to persecution when the eccle¬ 
siastical validity of an opponent is acknowledged. Persecu¬ 
tion may be mutual: that is, two persecutors may persecute 
each other. 

There is a kind of strife which always necessarily subsists 
between Churches. So long as this is confined to a holy 
emulation, it is praiseworthy: when it rises to wrangling or 
contention, it is reprehensible: when it advances to the 
annulling of each other’s Churches, or of excommunication, it 
is persecution, and can only be despised and pitied by all 
good men. 

To all this, it is replied by some ecclesiastical exclusives, 
“What can we do? We do not exclude Christians and 
Churches because we wish to do so, but because we are 
obliged to. If Christians and Churches have not a legal 
origination, a legal ministry, and a valid form of government, 
what can we do? They exclude themselves, and we are 
obliged also to exclude them.” 

This reasoning would be utterly unworthy of notice, were 
it not for the fact that it has some respectable names attached 
to it. It must, therefore, empty and fallacious as it is, be 
displaced by argument. Remember, the objection does not 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


379 


lie against the Christianity of the Christians composing these 
Churches, but against the organization, or the legal form of 
the organization of these Christians into Churches. 

The argument is fallacious for the reason that those who 
make it would repudiate it in analogous cases. The same 
arguments directed against civil governments will prove that 
there is not a valid civil government on earth, and that the 
whole world is in anarchy. Directed against the courts of 
the country, it will prove that there is not a civil tribunal on 
earth with legal judicial powers. Applied to legislatures, it 
proves that there is not a law-making body on earth with 
legal powers to legislate. Nor is there an executive officer 
in the country, from the President of the United States to 
the sheriff of a county, who has legal authority to execute 
a law. 

Let us test either of these cases by the rule. 

Plere is a man who claims to be a judge of a circuit court. 
He has just passed sentence on a criminal convicted of mur¬ 
der, and I tell him that he himself is a murderer, for none 
but a legal judge has authority to pass such a sentence. In 
reply, he shows me the law of his State, which prescribes how 
the judges shall be appointed and commissioned by the gov¬ 
ernor, etc.; all of which things have been complied with in 
his case. But I reply that that governor was not a governor, 
nor that pretended legislature a legislature; for the people 
under whose franchise they claim their appointment had no 
right to elect them to these offices. He points me to the con¬ 
stitution of the State, but I ask for the right of these particu¬ 
lar people to form such a constitution; and he points me to 
the organization of the government after the Revolutionary 
war. But here I find the same objection. What right had 
these people to revolutionize the British Colonies ? He replies 
that Great Britain herself acknowledged the independence of 
the United States. But I ask, what right had Great Britain 


380 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


to legalize such an arrangement ? She herself is a spurious 
government. What right had William to conquer the coun¬ 
try ? What right had Cmsar to invade it ? And so, because 
this judge cannot trace his governmental authority back to 
Adam, he cannot substantiate his legal authority. And if we 
could go to Adam, it is questionable whether he had authority 
over any land out of Paradise, or even in that after he was driven 
out of it, and no man can now prove where Paradise was. So 
there is no legal authority now on the earth. 

This is the argument. And it is just as good in the one 
case as in the other. 

But the rule of common sense is, that legal men who have 
a government in fact have a legal government. 

And so of Christians. Legal Christians who have a Church 
in fact have necessarily a legal Church. But they cannot be 
legal Christians if, collectively or individually, they transgress 
the Scriptures. 

The rule goes even farther than this. A government or 
compact founded in fraud becomes legal to all intents and 
purposes when the fraud cannot be rectified. 

The title to the ground where I now sit and write is founded 
in fraud. It is well known that the Legislature of Georgia, 
when Mississippi formed a part of that State, sold a large 
territory here to a New England land company—perhaps it 
was called the Massachusetts Company—by notorious, proved) 
and undenied fraud. Congress, however, was compelled to 
purchase the country from the fraudulent purchasers, or those 
who held under them, and there the fraud will remain as long 
as the country carries its history down the annals of time. 

We might go a step farther and inquire, Where is the land 
the title to which is not founded in legal fraud ? 

An irregularity, so far as men are concerned, either in Church 
or state, or any other human affairs, becomes regular, or is 
treated by all men as though it were regular, when the irregu- 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 381 

larity or illegality is of sucli a nature that it cannot be recti¬ 
fied. The negative of this principle would throw society, in 
all its departments, into irremediable jargon and confusion. 

Persecution requires impossibilities. It supposes that which 
is not supposable. It assumes that which cannot be true. It 
demands of men a constitution, mental and moral, other than 
a human constitution. 

Persecution is the civil, social, or ecclesiastical excommu¬ 
nication of legal or proper Christians in any way by any sort 
of infliction. You persecute a Christian when you cause him 
to believe that you esteem him not to belong to the true and 
proper body of Christ. You persecute a Christian when, be¬ 
cause of his religious opinions, you lay upon him the ban of 
proscription, civil, social, or ecclesiastical, of the weight of a 
feather. You persecute a Christian when you forbid him to 
cast out devils in Christ’s name for the reason that he does 
not follow Christ as you follow him. You persecute Christ¬ 
ians when you become a bigot; and you become a bigot when 
you persecute Christians. 

Ignorance is the father and Superstition is the mother of 
persecution. 


382 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


CHAPTER Y. 

HEREDITARY EXCLUSIVENESS. 

Ecclesiastical exclusiveness grows out of two circum¬ 
stances, and bases itself on two different positions. First, 
hereditary, and second, ceremonial exclusiveness. 

The ancestral or hereditary exclusiveness argues on this 
wise : That in consequence of some history or supposed his¬ 
tory of the organization men claim connection with, their 
Church is superior to others, or perhaps it is the only true 
Church. Other Churches are not Churches, because these 
historical facts do not obtain in their case. 

These historic facts may relate to the ordination of their 
ministers in a line backward—of which, perhaps, we have said 
enough—or to some real or supposed religious customs, or 
belief, or rites, which have been kept up in a line backward, 
reaching to the time of the apostles, or to very early times. 

Every notion or consideration of this sort is nothing more 
nor less than apostolic succession. The doctrine of apostolic 
succession, as a system of philosophy, is the same, whether it 
relates to a succession of ordinations of ministers, a succession 
of sameness or uniformity in modes of worship, a succession 
of mode or custom in administering or receiving either of the 
sacraments, or a succession in any thing, so understood as to 
make the validity, valuableness, or superiority of a presently 
existing Church depend upon something in the history of that 
specific organization in the past ages of the world. 


TIIE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


383 


We are told that an existing Church is, or is not, a 
true Christian Church, because some persons who lived a 
hundred or a thousand years ago, and who claimed or were 
supposed to have claimed, to worship under the same ex¬ 
ternal form or name, as a Presbyterian, Baptist, or Methodist, 
did or did not do or believe certain things. But we are 
totally and entirely uninformed how it is that the faith or 
practice of persons in past ages can affect the Christian char¬ 
acter of persons or associations now. On this point there 
has probably never been uttered among men the slighest in¬ 
timation. And surely the two facts amount to exactly 
nothing, unless some moral or spiritual relation be shown be¬ 
tween them. In the absence of such philosophic expla¬ 
nation, it might just as well be said that an existing 
Church is or is not a Church, because there was an eclipse 
of the sun or moon, in the sixteenth, the tenth, or the fifth 
century. 

What relation is there between the two circumstances ? 
That question is easily answered. There is, supposing the 
history to be correct, a historic relation. But is religion his¬ 
tory? Can religion, good or bad religion, be made out of 
either good or bad history ? 

The existing condition of a Church might as well be 
compared with some geographical or military fact of past 
existence, to test its validity, as to a historic ecclesiastical fact \ 
for religion consists neither in geography, military tactics, nor 
history. Religion inquires only into the present personal 
relation between a man or a woman and Jesus Christ. And 
inquiries into the belief or practice, or any other facts re¬ 
specting persons of times which are past, cannot answer this 
question. 

But it may be assumed that the religious character of indi¬ 
vidual persons is a different thing from the legality of a 
Church. That may be. But will it be assumed that an asso- 


384 THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 

ciation of pious Christian people, with their minister, regarded 
in their associate, aggregate character as a worshipping assem¬ 
bly, is not a Church ? If they be Christians, they follow 
Christ. If they worship as Christians, they worship accord¬ 
ing to the Bible, or try to do so. And is not that what is 
meant by a Church ? 

The grand idea of exclusiveness seems to be this. There 
is an association of people who are pious. It is admitted they 
are Christians personally. If they die in their present con¬ 
dition, they will go to heaven. They live, therefore, in the 
favor of God, and walk in his commandments. This is the 
condition of each person individually considered. And here 
is another association of persons claiming to be Christians. 
In personal piety and godliness it is not pretended they are 
a whit above the persons first named. This latter association, 
however, is a true Church, and the former is no Church. 
And we inquire how this can be? We are informed that 
the objection against the validity of the former class, as a 
Church, does not lie against their piety—against the religious 
character of those persons. They are as sure of heaven as the 
surest, if they persevere in their course of humility, prayer, 
and uprightness. The objection lies against the organization 
—against the compact in the aggregate, and is because the 
rules of ecclesiastical association in regard to the officers of the 
association were not strictly observed in times past: that the 
predecessors in office of the present officers omitted to use 
certain words in the ordination of a minister, or in baptizing 
Christians, or in something else; and these official errors have 
not been, and in the nature of the case could not be, corrected 
by succeeding officers of the association. 

And our reply to this is, supposing it all to be true, that it 
makes no sort of difference. As a member of the former 
association, one might reply: “I do not care a whit for all 
that. My only object in uniting with the association is to get 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 385 

to heaven—to obey God—to be a Christian individually. I 
do not expect to get to heaven officially, or in connection with 
the official conduct of some officer. The end of association is 
answered if the people live holy, exert a good religious influ¬ 
ence in the world, obey God, and get to heaven. A fig for 
the association , so that the people in it all follow Christ, pro¬ 
pagate Christianity, and get to heaven.” 

What is the association, considered abstractly and dis¬ 
tinctly from the people who compose it? How can legal 
Christians compose and make up an illegal Church? To what 
does the legality of a Church refer, if not to the legality of 
the Christianity of the persons who compose the Church ? 
What is it that makes an association of persons a Church, but 
the Christianity of the members, and their associating as 
Christians, for the purpose of carrying out their Christianity ? 
What is the compact itself, abstractly considered from the 
religion of the parties, but ink and paper ? The Church is 
the aggregate of the individual Christians who compose it. 
A Church is a company of Christians associated for Christian 
purposes. The Church catholic is the whole company of 
Christians on earth. 

This proposition is true, beyond all controversy: The 
Church of God on earth is the unity of the several Christians 
on earth. A Christian is a person taken into Christ, or into 
Christ’s family or household. All those persons spoken of, 
or considered, in the aggregate compose the universal Church. 
And in like manner we speak of the several parts of the 
Church universal as Churches. So we speak of a congrega¬ 
tion or company of Christians as a Church; and also of many 
congregations in confederation with each other, as Churches. 
This is only a slight variation of the several senses in 
which the term is used. Still, Church means Christians: 
Christians, in association, constitute a Church. 

It is inquired then, if a person, not a Christian, in the 

17 


386 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


sense of being united to Christ by faith, cannot be a member 
of Christ’s Church. The reply is, That is impossible. No¬ 
thing can be more absurd or contradictory than such a pro¬ 
position. A man not a Christian be a member of Christ’s 
body of Christians! As well might we suppose a man an 
American, who was born in Africa, and continues to live 
there. Christ recognizes but two classes of persons in this 
regard : those who are Jus by faith, and those who are not his f 
by unbelief. 

Poes a man become a Christian by consenting to be called 
a Christian, and having his name written in a list of names 
of Christians? Surely not. Men become Christians by a 
different process. 

But it is answered, perhaps, Men who are not truly Chris¬ 
tians do associate in Church organization with truly pious 
Christians; and how can we exclude these and retain those ? 
That is, it is inquired, How can we distinguish between true 
and false Christians—that is, between persons who are and 
persons who are not Christians ? 

And the answer is, We cannot do it at all. But our inability 
to distinguish, in the hearts of men, between persons who are 
and those who are not Christians, does by no means prove that 
there is no such distinction. 

It is, perhaps, very common for persons who are not Chris¬ 
tians to be rated, by fallible, erring men, as Christians. But 
that is only a mark of human ignorance: it cannot change 
the character of the persons in question. Falsehood cannot 
become truth by ignorance esteeming it to be such. 

Persons who are humanly reckoned to be members of 
Christ’s Church, and who really and truly are not, are errone¬ 
ously so reckoned, that is all. They are illegal Christians, that 
is, not Christians, and, so far as they are concerned or named , 
the association is an illegal Church. And suppose half, 
threp-fourths, nine-tenths of the whole number of the sup- 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


387 


posed Church are of this sort—spurious, illegal Christians—no 
matter; it does not affect the question in the least; it only 
reduces the true number of the true Church so much the 
more. And how far may this reduction proceed without 
affecting the validity of the Church ?—that is, how small a 
number of Christians may compose a Church? For their 
being in seeming connection with supposed Church members 
who are not truly such, does not affect their character as Chris¬ 
tians in the least, nor in the least affect the question of a 
Church. 

The smallest number of Christians who can by possibility 
compose a Church, is “two or three.” This is expressly 
declared in the word of God : “ Where two or three are 
gathered together in my name, there am I, in the midst of 
them.” It will not, it is presumed, be disputed that the pres¬ 
ence, of Christ in an association of men is the point of dis¬ 
tinction between those who are and those who are not a 
Church of Christ. The presence of Christ is all we need, 
the absence of Christ is all we deplore. 

If it can be supposed that a person not truly a Christian 
may be a member of Christ’s Church, then two such persons 
may, and then ten, and then a hundred, and so, all the asso¬ 
ciation may be such; and then we have arrived at the absurdity 
of having a Christian Church without a Christian in it; 
which abrogates the distinction between a Church and a com¬ 
pany of persons. Now if men had a Church, if it were not 
all the while Christ's Church we are discoursing about, the 
case might be different. Men could take persons into their 
Church, if they had one, on such conditions as they would 
agree upon. But this is not the case. 

Then, if this reasoning be correct, how is it that Christians 
in one place, and in one association, may speak of Christians 
in another place, and in another association, as not having or 
being a true Church ? What is the rule ? By what course 


388 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


of reasoning are they excluded ? Why are these persons a 
Church, when those are not ? Mere flippancy of the tongue 
is not logic. 

Let it be remembered that the authority of Christ, its pres¬ 
ence or absence, constitutes the trueness or falseness of a 
Christian Church. And let it be further remembered, that 
this authority descends to us, through the period since Christ 
was on earth, in one of two ways : first, in the written Scrip¬ 
tures ; or, second, in successive communications from man to 
man in a line of offices or investitures, which is apostolic suc¬ 
cession, and of which enough has been said. 








THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


389 


CHAPTER VI. 

CEREMONIAL EXCLUSIVENESS. 

Another class of exclusiveness may with propriety, per¬ 
haps, be called ceremonial, because its principles and reasons 
are supposed to be found in the use or disuse of certain cere¬ 
monies made use of in worship. A religious ceremony is the 
performance of some religious duty, by such actions, forms, 
and circumstances, as are supposed to render it magnificent 
and solemn. Or it is the assemblage of rites and modes in 
which the duties or functions of the ministry are performed. 

Much has been said with regard to religious ceremonies. 
Some think they ought to be abolished altogether, while others 
think they ought to be carried to the utmost possible extent, 
so that an air of pomp, magnificence, and array shall be 
thrown around every duty. Neither of these seems to be the 
true policy; for those who teach the former do not practice 
what they teach, and those who advocate the latter have gone 
quite away from Christianity. The truth seems to lie some¬ 
where between the Romanists and the Quakers. 

A uniform mode of conducting Divine service is a cere¬ 
mony ] or rather the manner in which it is conducted, if it 
be conducted in a regular and orderly manner, is a ceremony. 
The sacraments are necessarily administered with some cere¬ 
mony. And the different modes of celebrating them are the 
different ceremonies used in their administration. 

The Lord’s Supper is sometimes administered in one kind 
of a ceremony, and sometimes in another. A great many 


390 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


different kinds of ceremony are observed by different Churches 
and in different places in its use. And so of baptism. Some¬ 
times it is administered by one kind of ceremony, sometimes 
by another. And so of receiving members into the Church, 
and of excluding disorderly persons therefrom. Sometimes 
one kind of ceremony is used, and sometimes another. 

Now, in performing these various religious ceremonies, the 
effort seems, for the most part, with many persons, to be to 
get nearest, or as near as practicable, to the forms used by 
the apostles or very early Christians. They used some form, 
some ceremony, in partaking of the Lord’s Supper, in bap¬ 
tism, in receiving and excluding Church members, etc. 

But must that form necessarily always be used ? Or sup¬ 
pose the precise form be not used—what then ? 

In the first place, we are not informed in the Scriptures— 
and no other information can be authentic—we are not in¬ 
formed how , by what ceremony, these several duties were per¬ 
formed by the earliest apostles and Christians. The Supper 
seems to have been prepared in u a large upper room”—and 
bread and wine were distributed among and partaken of by 
the disciples in memory of the death and resurrection of 
Jesus Christ. 

There are a great many other things respecting it of which 
we are not informed; such as the quantity taken by each, 
the time spent in the ceremony, the attitude they placed 
themselves in, the precise words used, etc. 

Now, if it be said that it is absolutely necessary to follow 
the early example, then several questions arise: 1. Do we 
know certainly what the model is ? The lack of informa¬ 
tion renders a compliance impossible. 2. In what particulars 
are we to conform to the early official model ? Surely not in 
every thing. This is absolutely impossible. The room, the 
quantity of bread and wine used, the dress of the communi¬ 
cants, the posture, words, time of day, and many other cir- 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


391 


cumstanees that certainly did take place then, cannot possibly 
be followed by Christians in after-ages. Then what particu¬ 
lars are necessary, and what may be waived ? 

Again : if it be said that it is necessary to follow the apos¬ 
tolic example in these ceremonies, it is inquired, Necessary 
for what purpose ? Necessary, it is presumed it is meant, in 
order to secure the approbation and blessing of Almighty God 
in the action. A proper or legal ceremony, then, will secure 
the blessing of G od ; an illegal or improper one will not. 

Then, what is an illegal ceremony in administering or par¬ 
taking of the Lord’s Supper ? And this raises the question, 
What is the Lord’s Supper ? The Lord’s Supper is a sacra¬ 
ment, or solemn obligation, in which the Christian is reminded 
afresh of the death of Christ, and promises afresh obedience 
in his service. And this obligation is taken and received in 
the act of eating bread and drinking wine, which has been 
solemnly and religiously dedicated to that purpose. Now, 
how can a Christian solemnly and conscientiously reassume 
this obligation—being solemnly reminded of Christ’s death for 
him,'and sacredly promising anew to be faithful and obedient 
to God—how can he do this—all this—in some form that is 
illegal, the ceremony in which it is done being illegal ? 

We are told by good human authority—authority which is 
certainly every way reliable—that in the days of the apostles 
it was customary with the disciples to mix water with the 
wine used in the eucharist. (Mosheim’s Ecclesiastical His¬ 
tory, vol. i., p. 169.) Now, this mingling was part of the 
ceremony. Did it, or could it, render it illegal ? Or does the 
use of pure wine now render the sacrament itself illegal ? 
What kind of wine is legal wine for this purpose ? What 
kind of bread is legal bread for a legal sacrament ? 

The legality consists not in the ceremony or the mere exter¬ 
nal manner in which the thing is done; but in the conscien¬ 
tiousness and good faith in which the thing is done. 


392 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


So far, then, as the Lord’s Supper is concerned, it is im 
possible for the ceremony to be illegal, if nothing else be 
faulty. A ceremony cannot in itself, abstractly considered, be 
illegal. It is not a subject of legality or illegality. The 
blessing or approbation of God does not attach to the ceremony. 
It attaches to the fact and circumstance of good faith, solemn 
conscientiousness and religious intention in assuming the sacra¬ 
ment. Suppose the sacred elements be received in a sitting, 
or kneeling, or recumbent, or in a standing posture. How 
can any one of these different ceremonies be illegal ? The 
thing is clearly impossible. 

If, for instance, a person accustomed to see this sacrament 
administered in a kneeling posture, and being used to having 
his feelings solemnly impressed by this kneeling posture, were 
to adopt a standing or recumbent position, the question would 
arise, What is the cause of the change ? If it be a mere 
freak of fancy, or is so performed for the mere purpose of 
appearing odd or of exciting attention or remark, then the 
sacrament would be illegal. It would not, however, be ille¬ 
gal because of the posture , but because of the absence of re¬ 
ligious solemnity and sacredness which led to it. 

And just so we reason with regard to baptism. Baptism 
is an instituted rite or ceremony in which a person is received 
into the visible association of Christians. That is evidently 
the object and end of the thing. A solemn ceremony is con¬ 
nected with it for the same purpose for which all ceremonies 
are used, viz., to impress the thing solemnly and religiously 
upon the heart. 

In the case of the holy eucharist, bread and wine were ar¬ 
bitrarily selected as the elements to be used. In this sacra¬ 
ment water was ordained. 

The natural emblematic fitness of bread and wine in the 
first, and of water in the last, does not displace the fact that 
the appointment was arbitrary, because something else might 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


393 


have been selected. Bread is a very fitting substance to use 
as an emblem, because its chief property is to sustain man 
and keep him alive. Wine is also a very appropriate sub¬ 
stance, because it has, in a high degree, the property or qual¬ 
ity of invigoration. And for the other purpose—the solemn 
designation of a person as a Christian, by which he is now 
contradistinguished from the pollutions and filthiness of the 
world—what could be more appropriate than water to be used 
as a symbol ‘t 

The bread and wine in the one case, and the water in the 
other, are mere symbols. Of course it is not designed in 
the one case that the bread and wine actually strengthen 
and invigorate the body, nor in the other that the water ac¬ 
tually cleanses the body of external impurity. In fact, the 
strengthening and invigorating in the one case, and the 
cleansing in the other, do not refer to the body, but to the 
soul. 

Bread and wine are the ordained symbols of commemora¬ 
tion in the one case, and water the ordained symbol of sanc¬ 
tification or setting apart, in the other. The symbols of com¬ 
memoration in the one case are to be used in the name of the 
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. The symbol of designation 
in the other case is to be used in the name of the Father, 
and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. “ Bo this in remem¬ 
brance of Me.” — 11 Baptizing them in the name of the Father , 
and of the Son, and of the Holt/ Ghost.” 

All this is exceedingly plain, simple, beautiful, reasonable, 
philosophic, and easily understood. The objects, aims, in¬ 
tent, meaning, and end of the two things are as easily com¬ 
prehended and understood as any thing can be. 

But now we hear a great many things said about the man¬ 
ner in which these symbolic services are to be performed. 
What particular ceremony is used ? Iiow are the symbols 
administered ? Here a great many questions may arise. For 

IT* 


394 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


instance, in the eucharist, do the persons receiving it stand 
up or sit down ? Or in what posture do they place them¬ 
selves ? And what posture does the administrator occupy ? 
How much bread and how much wine does he use ? What 
words, if any, are spoken, and by whom, in the ceremony ? 
In what kind of vessels are the elements served ? What kind 
of officer must sanctify the elements, and by what ceremony, 
if any, other than prayer ? May the same person administer 
the elements to himself? These and other questions per¬ 
taining to the ceremony of the eucharist are not wholly un¬ 
important; but this is not the question. The question we 
are concerned in just now is, How do they or how can they 
affect the legality of the sacrament ? 

If the appointed emblems be used : if they be consecrated 
in some regularly appointed and solemn mode by prayer : if 
they be taken in religious service, in solemn remembrance of 
Christ’s death, as our atoning sacrifice, is not that a sacrament ? 
Can any thing add to its legality ? Can any mere ceremo¬ 
nies make that which is legal more than legal ? Remember, 
the question of legality is the question whether the Saviour 
will or will not recognize the service and own it. The ques¬ 
tion of legality does not refer to what men have said or done 
or enacted; but to what G-od has ordained and will recognize. 

Now, would it or would it not be superstitious and improper 
to contend that that man is not a Christian, or that his Church 
is not a Church, because it is his or its custom to receive the 
Lord’s Supper in a sitting posture, or in a kneeling posture ? 
Or because of the presence or absence of some other ceremony 
in the setting apart or investiture of office of the person who 
performed the ceremony of consecration of the emblems? 
Or because too great or too small a quantity of bread or of 
wine was used ? Or because some precise words were or 
were not used ? Surely this would be superstition. 

And we reason in the same way in regard to baptism. 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 395 

Baptism is a rite by which we distinguish Christians from 
people of the world. It must, of course, in order for it to be 
performed in good faith, be performed in a regularly appointed 
manner; water must be used as the emblem, and in the sacra¬ 
ment there must be a solemn, religious separation of a person 
from the world, and a dedication of him to God, in obedience 
to the institution of this ordinance by Jesus Christ. 

Would it not, as in the former case, be improper to pro¬ 
nounce that that person is not a Christian, because the cere¬ 
mony in which his baptism was administered was in some way 
defective ? For instance, the exact words in the entire ser¬ 
vice were not used; or the posture of the person administer¬ 
ing or receiving the sacrament was not right; or the kind or 
quantity of water used was not exactly right. Surely ques¬ 
tions of this sort cannot affect the validity of the sacrament. 
Questions affecting the validity of the sacrament must refer 
to the sacrament itself; that is, the obligation itself. A 
sacrament is an obligation, or the thing by which a person 
assumes a solemn religious obligation. 

What do we mean by a sacrament ? Is water a sacrament ? 
Is water used in any way , or by the assistance of any person, 
a sacrament ? Surely not. A sacrament is an obligation; 
and the water used is a mere external symbol, in the use of 
ivhich the obligation is assumed. To say that the water, or 
something done with it, is a sacrament, is to talk very 
unwisely. The sacrament is the obligation entered into in 
the reception of the baptism. 

The physical or real things or substances used in perform¬ 
ing the sacrament are merely symbolic, not real. The quan¬ 
tity of bread and wine cannot be so increased as to produce 
actual strengthening and invigoration to the soul. A symbol 
is, in its nature, abstractly considered, inert and valueless. 
It is impossible, likewise, to increase the quantity of water 
used in baptism, so that it may produce a cleansing of the 


396 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


soul. An additional quantity is of precisely the same import 
in the one case as in the other. 

There is nothing that makes an association of men a 
Church but the Christianity of the persons composing it, 
There is nothing that can debar an association of men, claim¬ 
ing to be a Church, from being properly and truly so consid¬ 
ered, but the lack of Christianity. And Christianity does 
not consist in forms. It consists in the infusion of vital god¬ 
liness into the soul and life. Forms become necessary or 
useful, only as a means of extension and healthfulness to this 
vital religious principle. 

The idea, then, that men are not Christians, because the 
minister at whose hands they received the emblems of the 
death of Christ was not constituted a minister in some par¬ 
ticular way; or because the minister to whose persuasions and 
exhortations they yielded, when they determined to forsake 
sin and be Christians, was not ordained in some particular 
way; or because the minister who officiated in their baptism 
was not descended, lineally or chronologically, from a proper 
spiritual ancestry, or ecclesiastical parentage ) or because the 
quantity of water used in their baptism, or in the baptism of 
the minister at whose hands they received baptism, was not 
sufficiently large ) or because they were too young or too old 
when they received baptism—all these objections seem to in¬ 
dicate a forsaking of the substance and a grasping of the 
shadow. 

If we deny Christianity to persons who profess Christian¬ 
ity, our objections should be laid against their Christianity, 
and not against the mere forms and ceremonies which attend 
its practice. 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


897 


CHAPTER VII. 

INTOLERANCE. 

Ecclesiastical intolerance is tlie denying to persons or 
Churches the right to think freely for themselves in matters 
of religion, by Churches, societies, or individuals. It is the 
making of creeds, or the laying down of tenets or construc¬ 
tions of Scripture, and imposing them upon individuals, under 
pain of some kind of punishment. 

There are no two persons that construe the Bible in all 
things alike. So there are no two persons who think alike 
on all religious questions. Religious toleration is the agree¬ 
ing to disagree on all questions not plainly laid down in the 
Bible as essential to religion. It is the toleration of religious 
error in a professing Christian, who tries, no matter how feebly 
or ignorantly, to be an humble disciple of Jesus Christ. 

Intolerance, on the contrary, denies fellowship and Christ¬ 
ianity to a person who does not think, on some point or 
points, as we think, or according to the creed which we have 
established or to which we subscribe. 

The things absolutely essential in Christianity are so plainly 
laid down in the Bible, that there is perhaps very little, if 
any, disagreement among professing Christians with regard to 
them. There are, however, in the Bible, a great many things, 
in faith and practice, deemed very important in religion, 
greatly useful or greatly hurtful, which may be believed and 


398 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


practiced with great advantage, or great detriment, though 
not absolutely necessary to be believed or to be excluded. 

Intolerance is the compelling another to believe or practice 
any of these things, on pain of some kind or some degree of 
punishment. It does not matter how great or how small the 
punishment may be to make out a case of intolerance. 

Religious error may and should always be met with disap¬ 
probation, but never with punishment. Here is the precise 
line that divides between tolerance and intolerance. 

Disapprobation is the act of the mind, whereby we condemn 
what is believed to be wrong. Or, secondly, it may mean the 
expression of such disapproval by appropriate words or ac¬ 
tions ; but it can never amount to punishment in any degree. 
Punishment is the infliction of any pain or suffering on a per¬ 
son for crime, offence, or error. 

Ecclesiastical intolerance, then, is the infliction of some 
pain or suffering on a person, because of his religious belief. 
It may amount to an expression which lessens the person in 
the estimation of men, or it may amount to the stake, or the 
inquisition. 

It has been well remarked in regard to it, that “ The pre¬ 
tence of superior knowledge, sanctity, and authority for its 
support, is the disgrace of reason, the grief of wisdom, and 
the paroxysm of folly. To fetter the conscience is injustice; 
to ensnare it is an act of sacrilege; but to torture it, by an 
attempt to force its feelings, is horrid intolerance; it is the 
most abandoned violation of all the maxims of religion and 
morality. ” 

For intolerance to be obnoxious to these just animadver¬ 
sions, it is not necessary that the principle be carried as far 
as fire and fagot. The animadversion lies against the prin¬ 
ciple, not against the degree to which it is carried. 

There are two ways, and only two ways, in which religious 
error may be met and disposed of. It may be met, first, 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


399 


by intolerance, persecution, punishment; and, secondly, by 
reason, argument, expostulation, reproof, persuasion, entreaty, 
exhortation, etc. This is the manifestation of a spirit of love : 
the former is the manifestation of the spirit of hate. Either 
may be administered in any conceivable degree; but they do 
not lose respectively their specific identity and character. 
The one forms the basis and makes up the superstructure of 
each and every teaching in the Bible. The other abro¬ 
gates every thing that is in the Bible. They are antipodes 
to each other. The one is tolerance—the other is ^toler¬ 
ance. Christianity prescribes that religious error shall be 
met in a spirit of love, forbearance, kindness, and entreaty; 
but man knows better than this, and resorts to intolerance, 
persecution, and punishment for the eradication of religious 
error. 

Intolerance may be regarded in two different points of 
light. Leaving out the savage brutality of civilization which 
punishes men for opinion’s sake by the civil magistrate, as 
not coming quite within the range of the few remarks in¬ 
tended for this chapter, we may mention the intolerance of 
the Church, and the intolerance of individuals. 

It is intolerant in a Church to lay a burden upon a person 
which causes pain of body or of mind, because of his religious 
belief. Beligion, to attach to Christianity, requires, in order 
to be religion, the largest liberty of the mind, and the greatest 
freedom of the will. Coercive religion would be as much of 
a solecism as coercive freedom. 

What, then, are we to say, and how are we to discourse of 
those Churches which require of a Christian that he believe, 
as a matter of religious faith, that the place where Philip 
baptized the eunuch was a brook or river of water of suffi¬ 
cient depth to allow of a man being plunged all over in it, 
and that the eunuch was actually submerged ?—that in the 
Greek language the word which is rendered “ baptize,” always 


400 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


means to immerse, or submerge ?—tliat when Christ says to 
the apostles, in the last of Matthew, “ Lo, I am with you 
alway, even to the end of the world,” it means that ministers 
must, in all cases, to the end of time, be ordained in a line 
of successive diocesan bishops, in order to the existence of a 
Church or a ministry; and that the words cannot have any 
other construction ? 

What right has a Church, unless intolerance be an ecclesi¬ 
astical right, to excommunicate a professing Christian because 
he believes, or does not believe, this, that, or the other sup¬ 
posed fact or historic occurrence, which he does not plainly read 
in the Bible ? or what right has any ecclesiastical authority 
to prevent a person coming into the Church for like reasons ? 

It must be remembered that excommunication is not from 
the Methodist Church, or from the Baptist Church, or from 
the Episcopalian Church, or from the Presbyterian Church; 
but that it is excision from the Church of God. Methodists 
have no Church; Baptists have no Church; Episcopalians 
have no Church; Presbyterians have no Church. Jesus 
Christ has the only Church; and the officers and members of 
those branches of Christ's Church are, respectively, officers 
and members in the Church of God. 

The same cause, then, which would exclude a person from 
one Church, or prevent him from coming into it, must neces¬ 
sarily operate in the same way in regard to any other Church. 
If a Church, or any officers of a Church, have a right to pre¬ 
vent a person from coming into a Church, or exclude him 
therefrom, because of his belief that a certain quantity of 
water was not used in some or in all baptisms in the apostolic 
days, then it is unquestionably the duty of all other officers in 
all other Churches, who are vested with the power of exclud¬ 
ing or receiving members, to do the same thing in all similar 
cases. If a Calvinistic Church has a right to exclude or keep 
out a member because he is not a Calvinist, then all Arminian 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 401 

Churches are bound to exclude and keep out members 
because they are Arminians, if it be granted that they are 
both true Christian Churches. 

This argument is absolutely irresistible. All Churches 
have the same Bible; and it is very certain there is nothing 
in the Bible which prescribes the conditions of membership 
in the Methodist, Episcopal, Baptist, or Presbyterian 
Churches; for these distinctive branches of the Church of 
God were not known in the days when the Bible was written. 

No Church has a right to prescribe conditions of member¬ 
ship in its own or any other communion. If it has a Church 
of its own , independent of any other communion, and inde¬ 
pendent of the Church of Christ, then it may do so, but surely 
not otherwise. All legislation on this subject was closed 
for ever, eighteen hundred years ago. Then and there it was 
determined, finally, for what a person should, and for what a 
person should not, be excommunicated from or be kept out 
of the Christian Church. These are two things— immoral¬ 
ity , and disbelief in Jesus Christ. There is not the slightest 
intimation, by the most far-fetched construction ever attempted 
to be made, within the lids of the Bible, that a person may be 
excommunicated from or be denied membership in the Church 
of Christ, for any thing other than one or both of these causes. 

It is, perhaps, just as correct a way to state the proposition 
—maybe more so—to say, that the Church possesses no 
power of excommunication. It merely pronounces judicially 
an existing fact or truth. The delinquent Church-member 
first places himself out of the Church, by disbelief or immo¬ 
rality, or, most likely, both; and the proper authorities of 
the Church find and pronounce the fact; so that it was not 
the Church that put him out: he first put himself out. 

But upon what principles of ecclesiastical jurisprudence 
found in the Bible can it be said, that when two Christian 
men differ in their construction of the eighth chapter of 


402 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


Romans, or some other chapter, that one or both, by such 
imperfect acquaintance with biblical hermeneutics, must be 
placed beyond the pale of the Church of God ? Is not such 
a proposition startling to the consciences of conscientious 
Christians ? How can it be said that a man places himself 
beyond the pale of Christ’s Church because he believes that 
the water where the eunuch was baptized, or where some one 
else was baptized in the days of the apostles, was only six 
inches deep ? 

This would not be the Christian religion : it would be 
topographical religion. A man’s views or opinions of the 
topography of iEnon, or of the fordable or non-fordable con¬ 
dition of the Jordan, at some certain place, is to determine 
whether he is or is not a Christian ! Why, there are very 
few Christians who live, or who ever did live, who either saw 
or have had a very correct and explicit topographical descrip¬ 
tion of these places. How can a man with certainty ever at¬ 
tain to Christianity, if its conditions be so far beyond his reach ? 

Hid ever Jesus Christ, in the days of his flesh, hear of 
such conditions of Christianity ? Hid his apostles ever dream 
of such things ? And if neither the Saviour nor his apostles 
engrafted them upon the Christian system, then their practice 
is intolerance—then Churches persecute for opinion’s sake— 
then we condemn intolerance with one hand, while we encour¬ 
age, and propagate, and practice it with the other. 

But if these things do belong to the Christian system, let 
us be consistent, and require of men as implicit faith in the 
depth of the waters of AEnon, and the strength of the cur¬ 
rent and fordableness of the Jordan, and in the true classic 
meaning of baptize, as in the death and resurrection of Jesus 
Christ. For the conditions of religion, whatever they may 
be, must be met. 

But the principle of intolerance must also be looked at in 
its application to individuals. 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


403 


The principle of intolerance is manifested as fully and as 
perfectly in individual sentiments and actions, as in the in¬ 
justice and the ravings of associate misrule and persecution. 

It is not enough that religious intolerance be lowered a 
little below the infernal and frantic ferocity of Romish big¬ 
otry, reeling and gloating in madness and savage cruel¬ 
ties. It is not confined to the inquisition and the stake, but 
diffuses itself by piecemeal, and exhibits itself as well and as 
plainly in individual actions. Religion does not require its 
diffusion or its modification, but its entire extirpation. The 
principle is wrong, and really strikes as deadly a blow at the 
pure and peaceful principles of soft and loving Christianity 
as does any other crime. 

The principle of toleration is violated whenever and by 
whomsoever a Christian—a person known to be or believed to 
be a Christian—is persecuted in any way, to any extent, by any 
person or persons. The man or the woman, of great or of small 
influence, in public or in private, who, in thought, or in word, 
or in deed, excludes a professing Christian from the Church 
of God, is guilty of the stake and the fagot. He is not 
guilty of so much wrong as the man who goes farther than 
he in the same road; but he has violated the principle—he 
lias condemned the teachings of Jesus Christ on this particu¬ 
lar point. 

The force of the truth of this declaration cannot be evaded 
by any pretended inability to construe, or attempt to miscon¬ 
strue, the words “ professing Christian.” The man who pro¬ 
fesses to believe in Jesus Christ as the Saviour of the world, 
and who does not furnish, by acts of immorality, a denial of 
the truth of the statement, is a professing Christian. 

The principle of intolerance will, of course, also apply to 
persecutions against persons for not being or professing to be 
Christians. And here it has applied, to the disgrace of 
humanity and the shame of the Church. But our remarks 


404 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


just now are intended more particularly for persecutions in 
the Church. 

Intolerance in the Church is that which lies against pro¬ 
fessing Christians because they do not profess the right creed; 
because they do not think as we think; because they follow 
not with us; not because they do not follow Christ, but 
because they do not follow as we follow. 

It is admitted on all hands that there is a vast amount of 
error in the Church—in all Churches and with all persons. 
This is not the question. The question is whether we are to 
meet the religious errors of professing Christians with the rod 
of excision, or with the reasonings and expostulations of 
brotherly love and Christian forbearance ? whether we are to 
take them by the hand and say, “ My brother,” and thus by 
kindness win them to the truth in regard to that particular 
error, and, in turn, be ourselves won by them, perchance, away 
from some cherished error we ourselves may have fallen into, 
by the same law of brotherly kindness, or whether we are to 
turn to him, either in spirit or in fact, the back of our 
hand, and say, “Away ! you are not in the Church ?” This 
principle of private, moral, or social excommunication now 
claims our attention; and it becomes us to discriminate 
between it and Christianity proper, or to point out its error. 

It is not necessary, in order to excommunication, for the 
officers of a Church to assemble, and by formal adjudication 
to pass a sentence of excommunication, and write the pro¬ 
nunciation down upon paper, and have an official signature 
placed thereto. 

What is excommunication, in its application to the person 
excommunicated ? It is the production and publication of a 
belief among men that the person in question is not in or a 
part of the Church of God. This may be done in a hundred 
ways. 

If I cause a person to believe that that man is not a mem- 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 405 

ber of the true Church of Christ because he is a Presbyterian 
—for that, as I say, strict episcopal ordination of a minister 
is necessary to the existence of a Church, and none can be 
in the Church who are not under the pastorate of such a 
minister, and the Presbyterian belongs to no such pastorate— 
I as completely excommunicate him as the most formal and 
solemn court could excommunicate, so far as public credence 
attaches to or acquiesces in the truth of the statement in either 
case. The most solemn or authoritative ecclesiastical court can¬ 
not excommunicate a man, so far as the man himself is con¬ 
cerned—that is, it cannot inflict on him the punishment of 
excommunication, if no one believes the truth of or regards 
the force of the pronunciation which the court makes. 

And, on the other hand, in the entire absence of all formal 
proceedings, if I set on foot the idea, in conversation or in any 
other way, that certain persons are not members of the 
Church of Christ—supposing them to have previously sus¬ 
tained the reputation of having been Church members— 
and everybody believes and regards the truth of the state¬ 
ment, they are completely excommunicated. 

The punishment of excommunication consists in the being 
deprived of the enjoyment of the reputation of being a valid 
Christian. The official writing of a sentence of excommuni¬ 
cation does not necessarily lessen or affect the real Christianity 
the man possesses, supposing him to have any. The know¬ 
ledge, however, that he is not regarded as a Christian—that 
men have no confidence in his Church membership, in the 
genuineness of his Christianity—is a lash of punishment upon 
a conscientious man; and it is very likely to exercise a delete¬ 
rious reflex influence upon his religion itself. Now, it does 
not matter in the least how this loss in reputation is brought 
about. It may be brought about by a formal ecclesiastical 
sentence; or it may be brought about by the preachings and 
teachings of over-wise and intolerant sectarian ministers; or 


406 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


it may be brought about in the more silent and private mould¬ 
ing of public sentiment by influential men. In either case, 
if the thing be effected, all the results of excommunication 
follow, and it matters not a whit to the man how the thing 
was done. 

If, then, any man holds publicly, by outcry or otherwise, 
that I am not a valid Christian because “ apostolic hands”— 
albeit the apostles are all dead—have not been laid on my 
head in “ confirmation,” or because my minister was not 
ordained by the proper u authority,” or the proper ceremony, 
as he thinks, or because too much or too little water was used 
in my baptism, or because of any thing I have conscientiously 
done or neglected to do, wherein he differs from me in opin¬ 
ion, he, so far as he is concerned, so far as his influence goes, 
so far as his statement is believed to be true, effectually ex¬ 
communicates me from the Church of God, and inflicts upon 
me all the pains and penalties of excommunication. 

It is the privilege, nay, it is the bounden duty of all Chris¬ 
tians to keep up a clear and open line of demarcation between 
the Church and the world. The very nature of religion 
requires this; and the word of God abundantly confirms and 
enforces the requisition. Christianity cannot be Christianity 
without it. But where is —what constitutes the line and the 
point of distinction between the world and the Church ? Is 
it the same now as it was in the days when the New Testa¬ 
ment was written? If so, then the question is easily an¬ 
swered. If the test of the Church and of Christianity has 
not changed in these eighteen hundred years last past, 
then the precise and only point of distinction between the 
Church and the world—between Christians and men who are 
not Christians—between those who gather with me, and those 
who scatter abroad—between those who serve Him, and 
those who serve Him not—is this: belief in Jesus Christ, 
and unbelief in Jesus Christ. 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 407 

Is it said, in reply to this, and in reply to the Bible, that 
some men believe in Jesus Christ whose immoral lives do not 
entitle them to be rated as Christians or as Church members ? 
This is impossible. It is a plain, blank contradiction in ideas. 
No fact can be true, when the best evidence the nature of the 
case admits of testifies wholly against it. Immorality of life 
is the best evidence the nature of the case admits of against a 
supposed belief in Jesus Christ. It might as well be said 
that a man is a mathematician who never learned the multipli¬ 
cation-table, or the nature of a square. Ignorance of these 
things is the very proof itself of his not being a mathemati¬ 
cian ; and just so in the other case. 

A man may believe some things about Jesus Christ. He 
may believe many things about him that are true—about his 
history, his teachings, or his person; but he cannot believe in 
him as his Saviour, and live an immoral life. To suppose 
that, would be to suppose that there is not a radical and per¬ 
emptory distinction between Christianity and immorality. 
Then, if a man be excommunicated for aught else than unbe¬ 
lief, evidenced by either immorality or by any thing else, he 
is excommunicated outside of and beyond the range of the 
Bible; or, in other words, he is a victim of intolerance and 
persecution. 

It is a common thing—strange that it is so—but it is a 
common thing for men to suffer intolerant excommunication 
for the most trifling causes imaginable. Men inflict upon 
Christians all the pains and penalties of excommunication— 
that is, as far as they are capable of the infliction—for causes 
which, in the absence of a blinded bigotry and a blind intol¬ 
erance, would seem to be very inadequate, to say the least of 
them. 

If a man does not believe that Polycarp was “the first 
bishop of Lyons / 7 and that he ordained Irenaeus after he 
himself was dead, he is excommunicated! This would appear 


408 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


strange, but it is the high-Church doctrine in its plainest and 
simplest settings-fortb. If a man does not believe that in 
one hundred and seventeen instances of successive bishops, 
they ordained each other in succession, when it is well 
known to everybody that in at least most instances the prede¬ 
cessor was dead before the successor was ordained, he is ex¬ 
communicated. That is, if he does not believe in the apos¬ 
tolic succession as a fact, he is no Christian • and to believe 
in the apostolic succession as a fact, is confessedly impossible, 
because it requires, according to all the proof of it ever at¬ 
tempted or claimed to be produced, that a man believe that, in 
a majority of one hundred and twenty instances, the dead 
man ordained his successor after he was dead. 

If a man does not believe that every one of the three 
thousand who were converted to Christianity on the day of 
Pentecost were baptized with a quantity of water at least suffi¬ 
cient for him to swim in, he is no Christian, and suffers ex- 
communication as a righteous penalty ! 

These things appear strange. Really, they would be justly 
obnoxious to the charge of the most solemn and insufferable 
trifling, but for the broad seal of undeniable truth that lies 
upon their surface. 

Men are summarily excommunicated by the piece, by the 
score, by the hundred, by the thousand, and by the million, 
not only for something, but for nothing. The frantic disso¬ 
luteness of Romish madness, in its silliest efforts to outdo 
Diabolus, never set up an inquisition more inquisitorial, nor 
set on foot a system of intolerance more intolerant than all 
this. Truth is stranger than fiction, truly. Ordinary blind¬ 
ness is sharp-sighted compared with the blindness of religious 
intolerance. 

It is true that these excommunicators do not put us to the 
stake; but they nevertheless maintain the principles of the 
stake; and if those principles were left unrestrained by the 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 409 

arm of civil authority, and the power of an outside public 
opinion, got up and kept alive by the indirect influences of 
civil power, the developments of human nature, and the native 
character of fanaticism, abundantly testify that they would 
very soon lead on to the stake. 

The Bible says, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you 
are a Christian. Fanaticism says, Believe in some certain 
facts that we believe respecting the Church government that 
was practiced in Palestine; and respecting the “authority” 
of the bishop—always taking care to spell the word with a 
capital B; and respecting the precise official character of 
Timothy, and Titus, and a dozen others; and respecting the 
manner in which “ ministerial authority” is transmitted from 
generation to generation down the stream of time; and re¬ 
specting the exact classic meaning of the Greek word 
fiarcTL^G), and its “cognates,” whether they have any exact 
meaning or not; and respecting the strength and depth of 
current and condition of the river Jordan; and respecting 
the waters of iEnon; and respecting about a hundred other 
things, most of which were never heard of by one-half of the 
Christians in Christendom. And then, if they wont believe 
—the stubborn dolts !—why, turn them out of the Church, 
and otherwise punish and persecute them until they do be¬ 
lieve as we believe! And if still they be incredulous, ruin 
them in reputation, and sink them in the hatred and contempt 
of all good men. And if still they wont believe, get fire and 
burn them : burn belief into them ! Torture them to death; 
for surely the stake and the rack are the proper and legitimate 
tests and instruments of truth !!! 

18 


410 


TIIE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

DEFECTIVE KNOWLEDGE. 

Another ground of exclusiveness urged against the Chris¬ 
tianity of persons claiming to he Christians, and against the 
validity of Churches which claim to he Christian Churches, 
is the defectiveness of their knowledge. 

At first view it would seem strange that defective know¬ 
ledge should be urged against the Christianity of either indi¬ 
viduals or organizations. And yet it is abundantly so urged. 
The objection is not urged in these words. I only say this is 
the thing objected against. 

Persons, as they attain to the years of accountability, and 
meditate a profession and practice of religion, as well as those 
in more advanced years, at some period in their lives, resolve 
upon a reformation of life and the practice of the godliness 
and piety enjoined in the Bible. They are surrounded with 
a variety of circumstances. They have all inherited, without 
knowing it or intending it, many prejudices and prepossessions 
from their parents. Some of them relate to religion. Many 
persons have been brought up by parents professing religion, 
and who were members of some Church. Their early associa¬ 
tions, also, have led them, imperceptibly, away from, or nearer 
to, the denominational opinions of this, that, and the other 
Church. 

Upon the whole, it is abundantly true that all men, before 
they embrace religion, are very powerfully influenced, in some 


TIIE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


411 


directions, in favor of this or that denomination of Christians, 
in contradistinction to other denominations. 

They look at the real Christianity of persons professing to 
be Christians, irrespective of mere technical questions of 
forms or ceremonies. They very naturally judge of men and 
of Churches by the apparent Christianity, piety, and holiness 
of heart and life which they see. 

By and by the truth of Christianity forces itself upon their 
consciences, and they determine—I must, I will be a Chris¬ 
tian. In every individual case these persons are either honest 
or dishonest—they meditate a change in life, either for the 
sake of Christianity itself, in good faith, to enable them so to 
live that they may die in the favor of God, or they enter upon 
it from some of the various motives that prompt to hypocrisy. 

If they be sincere in the matter, they are under the una¬ 
voidable necessity of determining a more important question 
than they ever decided before in their lives. They are obliged 
to determine a question, in all the earnestness of good faith, 
which comes very near to the question of their salvation. 
That question is, What Church shall I join ? This is not a 
question of mere fancy or personal preference, but is one of 
vital import. For it is impossible for a person to be a true, 
sincere Christian, without worshipping in that communion 
where he conscientiously believes he can practice and enjoy 
religion most and best, in the circumstances in which he is 
at the time situated. So that the question, what Church he 
shall join, is nearly, if not quite, equivalent to the question, 
whether he will or not be a true and sincere Christian. 

Churchism, whatever else it may be, is certainly not Chris¬ 
tianity. It is very clear that a person who joins this or that 
branch of the Church of Christ from mere ecclesiastical pre¬ 
ference, moved by a party spirit, or the zeal of a sectary, 
whatever else he may be, is not a Christian. 

Then, supposing the man to be honest with himself, and 


412 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


sincerely desirous of the salvation of his soul and the advance¬ 
ment of true religion, he necessarily unites himself with that 
branch of the Church where he believes he can live nearest 
to Christ, and best promote his glory. This was an honest 
question with him, and must have been settled, necessarily, 
in view of the cross, and the grave, and the judgment-seat. 
And consequently we see him honestly trying to be a Chris¬ 
tian. 

And now let us suppose that this man is mistaken with re¬ 
gard to some historical fact which occurred, or was said to 
have occurred, in the history of the Church, ten or a hun¬ 
dred or a thousand years ago. Suppose he is mistaken with 
regard to the truth or import of some ecclesiastical or theo¬ 
logical question which has obtained in the Church. Suppose 
he was less wise than some other man with regard to the 
question of apostolic succession, or some question about bap¬ 
tism, or about the Lord’s Supper. He acts, however, con¬ 
scientiously, with the best miud and light he has. 

And then let us suppose that, according to the doctrine of 
exclusiveness, this man, because of these errors, has got into 
the wrong Church, that is, into no Church, and therefore he 
is not a Christian. 

Now, if these things can be true, then Christianity is no 
longer Christianity, but a mere system of philosophy. If 
there be such a thing as Christianity, it cannot possibly 
be sought, sincerely and devotedly, in the Bible, in vain. 
But if it be a system of metaphysical philosophy, then it may 
be missed, no matter how faithfully and devotedly it be pur¬ 
sued, if the truth in it be pursued with defective know¬ 
ledge. 

The objection urged against Christianity by Volney and 
his followers was this : “What!” said he, “does God require 
every man to be a critical judge ?” He argued on this wise : 
How can any man hope, supposing Christianity to be true, 


TIIE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


413 


ever to become a Christian amidst such masses of unsettled 
opinions ? And his argument is irresistible if it be admitted 
that Christianity does really require every technical truth, 
and historic fact, to be truly and properly settled. 

But religion is not a system of philosophy, as is sup¬ 
posed by Volney, and by exclusives. It presents very few 
truths which are absolutely necessary to be believed in all 
cases. 

The inquiry was once made of one who may be supposed to 
have been correctly informed on the subject: u What shall I 
do to he saved ?” And what was the answer ? According to 
the doctrine both of Volney and of exclusiveness, it must have 
been this : Go and dig into the mines of metaphysical philoso¬ 
phy, search the ancient languages, learn the idiom of each of 
them, sit at the feet of the sagest doctors, put into requisition 
a mind that can grasp the most powerful and the most slender 
thoughts, be more wise than the wisest, and at the very bottom 
of the well of knowledge, there you shall find the only true 
elements of salvation. 

But the answer was, u Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.” 

Then the true religion of true Christianity is brought com¬ 
pletely down to the capacity of all men. “ Believe on the 
Lord Jesus Christthat, it seems, is the test of Christian¬ 
ity. The Apostle Paul was, then, neither a master nor a 
disciple in this school of exclusiveness. 

It is still true, however, that knowledge is absolutely neces¬ 
sary to the existence of Christianity, and, consequently, to the 
existence of Churches. But this is not the knowledge of 
letters, of authors, of books. It is not the knowledge which 
literature imparts, which science affords—the boasted lore of 
philosophy. It is the more important knowledge of intrinsic 
godliness. 

There is a vast difference between knowledge and educa¬ 
tion. Men are oftentimes educated far in advance of their 


414 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


knowledge. A man may be educated in the science of 
hydraulics, and the expansive power of water when heated. 
And to this may be added a critical and scientific acquaint¬ 
ance with mechanics. And yet, there is an illiterate negro 
who knows a hundred times more about the practical use of 
a steam-engine than the scholar who never saw one. Thou¬ 
sands will trust their lives in the hands of the one, when they 
would not risk themselves a cable-length in the keeping of the 
other. 

There may be a man deeply versed in physiology and 
natural history : he can tell you the name, and use, and relation 
of every bone, and muscle, and tendon, and fibre, and ligament 
in a horse, and all about his history, and yet his knowledge of a 
horse may be exceedingly defective. A man who does not 
know the meaning of the word ligament , may know forty 
times more about his real properties and practical uses. 

And just so of Christianity. A man may be deeply versed 
in the classics of Christianity : he may know much of its 
history, of biblical hermeneutics, of oriental customs and 
times, and yet he may be little acquainted with the Christian 
religion. 

Religion is not philosophy. It is a practical knowledge of 
God, and of Jesus Christ as a personal Saviour. Religion and 
the science of Christianity differ as widely as do the theory 
and practice of any of the practical sciences. Religion does 
not consist in a theoretical or scientific knowledge of the 
system of Christianity. A man may be an adept in the one, 
and a dolt in the other. 

From all this, however, it does not follow that a scientific 
acquaintance with Christianity is not useful to experimental 
godliness. The learned theologian, with the same experience 
in practical Christianity , is a better Christian than his 
illiterate brother. This superiority, however, consists more 
in an ability to advance Christianity in the world, than in its 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


415 


progress in his own heart. But religion is so perfect a 
system, and so completely linked together in all its parts, that 
ability to extend its principles far and wide, if put into 
execution, is by no means without its reflex benefits upon the 
heart and life. So that notwithstanding a deep and thorough 
knowledge of or acquaintance with the theoretic principles of 
Christianity is not necessary to the enjoyment of religion, 
and a deep knowledge of its benefits, yet it possesses all the 
benefits which science and learning are capable of yielding in 
any other department of human progress or perfectibility. 
Iieal science and true philosophy are as beneficial in religion 
as elsewhere, but not any more so. 

Then, if these plain, simple considerations be founded in 
truth and sound reason, how can it be pleaded, on the part 
of religious exclusives, that a man of personal godliness, of 
practical piety, is not, in all things, and in every way he may 
be viewed, a true aud legal Christian, irrespective of his 
knowledge of Christianity as a science, and notwithstanding 
any misinformation he may have received with regard to any 
of the forms or ceremonies connected with worship, or any 
facts or circumstances connected with the history of religion ? 
Legal Christianity can rise no higher than this, according to 
plain declarations of the word of God. “Believe on the Lord 
Jesus Christ That is the beginning and the end, the 
magnitude and the boundaries of the religion of Christianity. 
Personal piety, personal devotion to God, personal reliance 
on Jesus Christ as a personal Saviour, personal denial of 
the sins and fascinations of the world, personal faith, con¬ 
stitute a Christian in the highest, and broadest, and amplest 
sense. 

It is strangely supposed by some that this course of reason¬ 
ing may be answered by the posing question as to how far 
men may go away from the orthodoxy of the Bible, and still 
retain their ecclesiastical validity. And so we are asked if 


416 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


the societies of Universalists, and Mormons, and Millerites, 
and the like, are Christian Churches? And if not, why 
not ? 

These questions have been already, in effect, answered in 

0 _ 

the foregoing arguments. The ecclesiastical validity of these 
societies extends as far as their Christianity does. The 
measure and test of their ecclesiastical validity is also the 
measure and test of the validity of their personal religion. 
Universalists and Mormons are not Churches, because they 
are not Christians. 

Men are not Christians because they are Methodists, be¬ 
cause they are Baptists, because they are Episcopalians; but 
because they possess the Christian religion. Religion is the 
substratum, and muscle, and vitality of Christianity, and hence 
of valid Christian Churches. 

Surely it will not be held that an association of true 
Christians does not constitute a legal Church. It does, if reli¬ 
gion be the test of Christianity. But if literary acquirements 
be the test of Christianity—or, what is the same thing, if 
Christianity be a system of philosophy, and if its test be the 
perfection of metaphysical attainment, then the legal and 
proper religion of individual persons composing an associa¬ 
tion does no more prove them to be a true Church, than it 
would prove them to be true Free-Masons, or true repub¬ 
licans. But the truth is, that true Christianity consists in 
true religion, and not in the excellence of scientific edu¬ 
cation. 

But besides the exclusiveness of literary pride, we have 
also that of bigotry and ignorance. For it is no uncommon 
thing to see men who scarcely ever read the Bible carefully 
through, and whose reading otherwise has scarcely extended 
beyond three or four sectarian pamphlets, flatly and sweep- 
ingly exclude from the legal pale of Christianity three-fourths, 
or five-sixths, or perchance nineteen-twentieths of the profess- 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


417 


ing Christians of the age. It is strange indeed that it is so, 
hut so the truth is. 

And this wholesale exclusion is not by any means attempted 
to be levelled against their religion, their piety, their holiness 
of life, but against the defectiveness of their knowledge of 
Christianity as a religious system. Hence they regard Chris¬ 
tianity as a system of philosophy, and themselves as critics in 
classic and biblical hermeneutics. 

This, it is repeated, is strange indeed, but nevertheless 
abundantly true. Men are scholars above the ripest scholars, 
whose reading is confined to the spelling-book, or perchance 
to a repeated re-reading of a select portion of a select chapter 
of the New Testament. With such persons to know every 
thing about religion is 1 a mere commonplace. And for one 
to fail to know precisely according to the straight-edge of their 
ignorance and superstition, is to sin against the Holy Ghost, 
and place themselves beyond the realms of Christendom. 

Persons who can scarcely read and write, or at least who 
have studied the Bible very little, can oftentimes tell you 
more about the biblical teachings respecting baptism, for 
instance, than other persons of ten times their talent who 
have spent a quarter or a half of a century in learning and 
inquiring into the subject in all the languages in which it is 
treated of! 

Hannah More has well said that the strongest light cannot 
penetrate eyes that are closed against it. Bigotry effectually 
prevents a man from making search for the truth, because it 
conceives itself to be truth’s casket. Prejudice has no need 
for truth, because it is itself an improvement upon the system, 
or at least its substitute. A Roman governor once asked, 
“What is truth V’ and then instantly turned away for fear he 
would get an answer. 

But again. Ecclesiastical exclusives are the very first to 

*" 18 * 


418 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


violate their own principles; and the most constant in their 
repeated violations. 

Let us suppose, for instance, that it be held by some Chris¬ 
tians that the Methodist Church, or any other, holds and 
teaches spurious Christianity. No matter what may be the 
cause, Mr. Wesley was not ordained right, or some one else, 
in bygone ages, was or was not truly and legally ordained or bap¬ 
tized—or some of its members have not been properly bap¬ 
tized, or properly confirmed; some or all of the ministers 
of that Church misconstrued some one or more passages of 
holy writ; some one or more of King James’s translators 
were not quite well enough acquainted with Greek and 
Hebrew; the external government of the Church is not 
sufficiently concentrated, or it is too much concentrated—it is 
too rigidly administered, or is too feebly administered. No 
matter on what ground the exclusion is made—and it is well 
known that different classes of exclusives excommunicate this 
whole Church on each one of these separate grounds, at least, 
and other Churches on similar grounds—for some one or more 
of these reasons, the Methodist Church teaches a spurious 
Christianity. 

Then what is the duty of true Christians ? This spurious 
Church which teaches this spurious Christianity is the most 
numerous of all the spurious Churches. And supposing that 
the errors and falsehoods she teaches are as radical and damna¬ 
ble as those of other spurious Churches—which is at least 
probable—then what is the immediate duty of Christians with 
regard to this false Church ? It is obvious. It is their first, 
and grandest, and most imperative dutj T to wage against it a 
bold, and open, and fearless war of extermination. 

But instead of this, what is the course pursued in the pre¬ 
mises ? We occasionally hear a passing, and, perchance, a 
feeble word against it. We see no decided, outright demon- 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 419 

stration of opposition. The war they make against it is 
even more feeble than that which they wage against common 
sin. Methodism is often, among them, regarded as less 
dangerous to Christianity than drunkenness, or profanity, or 
Sabbath-breaking, or the like; and the opposition they openly 
hold to it is carried on in proportionate degrees of feeble¬ 
ness. 

Nay, far more than all this. The very true Christians who 
have determined and demonstrated all thes^ things in regard 
to Methodists, almost uniformly speak of them, or at least to 
them, and ostensibly appear to regard them, as Christians! 
They go sometimes on the Holy Sabbath day, with their wives 
and children, and sit and hear them perform what they call 
preaching. 

Now, what can be more inconsistent, or more derogatory or 
dangerous to true religion, than this ? Upon the hypothesis 
assumed, Methodism should be treated like any other form 
of infidelity.' The most weighty and powerful shafts of 
the gospel of the grace of God should be hurled against it, 
because it is more specious, more powerful, and, therefore, 
more dangerous than other forms or organizations of irreli- 
gion. 

True Christians, then, who are fully aware of all these 
things, and who, with apparent complaisance, shake hands 
with the heresy, speak of it as a part of the visible Christi¬ 
anity of the day, and make themselves sharers in the very 
heresy they condemn. 


420 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


CHAPTER IX. 

A FAINT PICTURE OF INTOLERANCE. 

The u conversion,” as it was called, of tlie Emperor Con¬ 
stantine, about three hundred years after Christ, was probably 
a great misfortune to Christianity; and if it is to be regarded 
as a misfortune, it was probably one of the greatest calamities 
religion has encountered. It seems to have been the inlet of 
exclusiveness—the opening wedge through the aperture of 
which has flowed all those varieties of intolerance and unholy 
principle which have so tarnished the history of the Church, 
and so damaged the religion of its members. 

Religion is the principle of benevolence in essence and in 
activity. Any spirit different from this is a spirit of the 
world. The conversion of Constantine was a union of Church 
and state. The emperor took the Church into his favor and 
protection, and the Church took in exchange the spirit of 
worldly ambition, pride of opinion, desire of domination, vain 
speculations on mysterious doctrines, a love of rites and cere¬ 
monies, and a desire to compel submission to its opinions. 

Hence errors in religion, real or supposed, were soon pun¬ 
ished with civil disabilities. The silly mummeries of monastic 
superstition, and the austerities of the Ascetics , were soon 
substituted for the plain worship of God, the simple trust in 
Jesus Christ, and the active duties, piety and benevolence, 
which the Bible enjoins. 

“ The disciples of Christ were inspired with mutual feuds 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


421 


still more implacable and destructive than the factions which 
were formed for or against different emperors. The spirit of 
contention condemned by St. Paul became almost universal. 
New sects sprang up incessantly, and combated each other. 
Each boasted its apostles, gave its sophisms for Divine oracles, 
pretended to be the depository of Divine faith, and used every 
effort to draw the multitude to its standard. The Church was 
filled with discord : bishops anathematized bishops; violence 
was called to the aid of argument, and the folly of princes 
fanned the flame which spread with so destructive rage. They 
played the theologist, attempted to command opinions, and 
punished those whom they could not convince. The laws 
against idolaters were soon extended to heretics; but what 
one emperor proscribed as heretical was to another sound 
doctrine/’—Millot, as quoted by Dick, (Works, vol. i., p. 
129 .) 

Theodosius passed a law, “That all subjects shall profess 
the Catholic faith with regard to the articles of the Trinity ; 
and that they who do not conform shall ignominiously ffe 
called heretics, until they shall feel the vengeance of God and 
our own, according as it shall please Divine Providence to 
inspire us.” 

This law was executed according to the true spirit and ven¬ 
geance of exclusiveness in power. 

In one instance, Hypatia, the daughter of Theon, a cele¬ 
brated geometrician, who was a woman of great learning, 
unsullied virtue, and unsurpassed beauty, and was the supe¬ 
rior of her father in philosophy—but she was a Pagan—was 
suspected of acting against St. Cyril the bishop, and thereby 
became an object of hatred and revenge to the Christian 
people. She was seized in the street by a set of monks, 
headed by a priest, hurried into the church, stripped naked, 
whipped, and torn literally in pieces, and her mangled body 
and bones were burned in the market-place. 


422 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


This spirit manifested itself in good earnest in the twelfth 
century by the establishment of the Inquisition by Father 
Dominic, who was sent by Pope Innocent III. to excite the 
Catholic princes to the extirpation of heretics. Of all the in¬ 
struments of injustice and cruelty ever invented among men, 
probably the Inquisition is the most diabolical, revolting, and 
inhuman. The history of the world does not elsewhere present 
such scenes of savage cruelty, refined barbarism, and inhuman 
tortures, falsely called punishment. 

And the crime for which these punishments were inflicted 
was a difference of opinion from that of the dominant party. 

Thousands, and tens of thousands, and hundreds of thou¬ 
sands of persons have suffered inquisitorial racks, and fires, 
and tortures, too hellish and revolting to be named. The 
victims were men, women, and children, rich and poor, learned 
and unlearned, high and low. The priests, and other pious 
persons, usually danced and frolicked, and sang and made 
merry in a high degree over the groans and shrieks of the 
suffering and the dying. And all this while it is beyond all 
question that these victims of infernal ferocity were many of 
them, most likely most of them, persons of substantial piety, 
fairly versed in the religion of the Bible. 

The massacres that have taken place to cure religious opin¬ 
ion are horrible and almost incredible. The 24th of August, 
1572, the feast of Saint Bartholomew was celebrated in Paris. 
It was devoted to the punishment of the Calvinists. By pre¬ 
concert, at the tolling of the bell, the soldiers and people, 
under the direction of the Church, sallied forth with every 
kind of weapons, and entering the houses of the Calvinists, or 
wherever they could be found, butchered them without stint 
or mercy. Men, women, and children, were indiscriminately 
found among the butchers and the butchered. Heads and limbs, 
and limbless and headless bodies, were thrown in piles in the 
streets and gateways, and cartmen could scarcely be found in 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


423 


sufficient numbers to haul the mangled bodies away and throw 
them into the Seine. The water of the river was discolored 
with blood and putrefaction for many days. The number of 
Calvinists thus slaughtered in and around Paris on this most 
disgraceful and infamous occasion amounted to but little, if 
any, short of seventy thousand. 

The news of this massacre was received at Rome, by the 
pope and cardinals, with transports of joy; and bonfires, the 
firing of cannon, and other demonstrations of hilarity and 
triumph, crowned the occasion with infamy and savage brutal¬ 
ity, that would or should have disgraced Diabolus in the very 
caverns of hell itself. 

Dragooning was another mode instituted by the Church 
to rectify religious opinion. In the reign of Louis XIV., of 
France, the soldiers were made to enter the houses of Pro¬ 
testants, and commit every kind of injury and indignity. Fur¬ 
niture was broken to pieces and strewn about the houses and 
in the street, provisions wasted, and the dining-rooms turned 
into stables for the horses of the dragoons. The persons 
themselves were treated with every possible sort of injury and 
insult. Infants were torn from the breasts of their mothers 
and roasted before them, or they were confined a short dis¬ 
tance asunder, where the innocent creatures would starve for 
their mothers’ milk. Women of all ages and classes were 
hung up by the hair after being deprived of every fragment 
of clothing. They were half roasted before the fire : they 
were stuck all over full of pins: they were cut in all manner 
of ways with knives and lances : they were treated with every 
kind of insult and injury that the hellish fury of religious ex¬ 
clusiveness could invent; and men were, in like manner, beat, 
shot, cut, and brutalized in the most revolting and shocking 
manner conceivable. 

The religious wars carried on by Louis XIII., under the 
direction of his pastor and spiritual governor, the Pope of 


424 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


Rome, are revolting and horrifying in the extreme. To make 
men think right about religion, near two millions of men, wo¬ 
men, and children lost their lives in war, or were ruthlessly 
butchered in cold blood. And nine cities, four hundred vil¬ 
lages, two thousand churches, two thousand monasteries, and 
ten thousand houses, were destroyed. It was said of the king 
by his biographer, that u what gave him the greatest pleasure 
was his thought of driving heretics out of his kingdom, and 
thereby purging the different religions which corrupt and in¬ 
fect the Church of God.” 

The arch-hangman, Bonner, u damned to everlasting fame,” 
whose name as a bishop disgraces the annals of the English 
Church, which is itself, in these days, a fouler disgrace to 
Christianity, was both the means and the instrument of sacri¬ 
ficing thousands and thousands of pious Protestants, because 
they did not belong to the right Church. With the infamous 
Henry, the u Defender of the Faith,” and the no less infamous 
Elizabeth, for civil magistrates, and Bonner for bishop, the 
devil may well afford to hold a jubilee. 

But still, we may ask, was Henry a worse man than many 
we meet with every day ? and was Bonner more intolerant than 
thousands of Christians are now-a-days? Look at the cir¬ 
cumstances surrounding the former, and the ecclesiastical 
power given to the latter. Bo not hundreds of Christians 
now persecute to the extent of their means ? and did Bonner 
do more ? 

Theological speculations coupled with zeal not according to 
knowledge , and both controlled by a spirit which teaches that 
“ I am surely right, and all who differ from me are surely 
wrong, and ought to be set right,” form the cause of religious 
intolerance, and are really the parents of bigotry, whether 
found in the hellish rites of Romanism, or the more mild but 
no more tolerant religious exclusiveness of our own times and 
country. 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


425 


Falsehoods, sophisms, and mysticisms are held forth as de¬ 
monstrations ; and those who do not subscribe to them are 
ostracized. This is the bigotry of Rome, Germany, England, 
and the United States. 

In Protestant Christianity, the inquisition, the stake, the 
rack, the excommunication, and the thunders of the bull, are 
generally found either in the written or spoken language of 
bigotry and intolerance, possessing less power than that of 
popish Europe. 

How haughty and magisterial, oftentimes, is the tone of re¬ 
ligious debate ! How dogmatical and overbearing the affirma¬ 
tions and conclusions of many ! How often is the question in 
controversy lost sight of, and the character of the person prose¬ 
cuting or defending it substituted in lieu thereof! IIow often 
does an inquiry after truth, which only can be the character 
of a debate among gentlemen on any subject, degenerate into 
a strife between two gladiators ! 

A man looks upon his neighbor as a Christian—believes 
him to be a good man, a pious man—would revolt at the idea 
of such a man being lost—but, because he does not think as 
he does about the proper manner of sitting or kneeling at the 
communion table, the proper manner of baptizing, or whether 
God’s decrees are absolute or contingent, or some other ques¬ 
tion confessedly non-essential, he must be put out of the syn- 
a<m°-ue. So far as we are concerned, and to the extent of our 
power, we put him out of the Church of Christ, out of the 
fellowship of Christians, and out of the kingdom of God. 

Mr. Vaughan, in his “ Defence of Calvinism,” says : “ The 
controversialist is a wrestler, and is at full liberty to do all he 
can, in the fair and honest exercise of his art, to supplant his 
antagonist. He must not only be dexterous to put in his 
blows forcibly, but must have a readiness to menace with 
scorn and to tease with derision , if haply he may by these 
means unnerve and unman his competitor.” 


426 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


Here is the 'principle of the Inquisition as full and clear 
as it was ever exhibited in or out of France or Italy. And the 
only reason why it does not extend to blood and fire, is that 
the arm of civil authority, which fortunately is uncontrolled by 
ecclesiastical frenzy, restrains it. Such sentiments and such 
practices are not only disgraceful personally, but they would if 
they could —perhaps not at one stride, but certainly would, 
if unrestrained—bring back all the horrors that ever resulted 
from the gloated drunkenness of Rome, or the fires of the 
most insane bigotry. 

Woe to religion when such u wrestlers” as these become its 
ministers! Its beauty will be obscured, its principles will be 
dethroned, its benevolent spirit smothered, and its glory de¬ 
parted. Such angry combatants have forgotten all about re¬ 
ligion : they forget that Christianity has a Church, and that 
the Church has a religion. 

What a contrast to the mild and gentle spirit of religion as 
we see it beaming forth on the page of inspiration ! See a 
bloated, bigoted zealot dipping his pen in gall, and laying a 
javelin by his side, when he sits down to defend the religion 
of mercy and love! See him, as he stands forth the minister 
of the mild and placid Jesus, foaming with rage, and hurling 
anathema after anathema, denunciation after denunciation, 
boisterous, u dexterous,” furious and overbearing, against the 
real or supposed supporters of some erroneous religious opin¬ 
ion ! And then see the poor, deluded man quarrel with the 
Pope of Rome and his ministers for doing the same thing ! 

Are there no errors in conduct ? Does all heresy relate to 
opinion ? See the proud, boastful, bigoted Methodist, Pres¬ 
byterian, Baptist, or Protestant Episcopalian, as he stands 
forth the champion of a religious opinion ! Perhaps he is 
right in his belief of the matter in question; but in combat¬ 
ing one error, he commits another a thousand times greater, 
and a thousand times more dangerous to the Church and to 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 427 

religion. He demolishes, and repudiates, and scandalizes, and 
destroys the Church, so far as his efforts are concerned, in 
what he vainly considers an effort to sustain it. 

And what is the cure for all this ? There is a cure, and it 
is within the reach of good men. To say nothing of men of 
doubtful religion who are in ecclesiastical association with 
Christians, there are enough of good men , pious men, holy 
men, men who love God more than they love religious parties, 
and who deplore these evils and are alive to the disadvantages 
of them, who can , if they will, cure the evils in question. 

There are men of God—true men of God—in the Presby¬ 
terian Church, in the Baptist Church, in the Protestant Epis¬ 
copal Church, in the Methodist Church, and in other orthodox 
Churches in this country, who can correct these evils, and 
save the Churches this dishonor and loss. 

It cannot be done in a day, but it can he done. If these 
men who fear God and love him supremely, and who prefer 
the prosperity of religion to all other prosperity, will determine 
the thing—not suffer themselves to be led away from their 
purpose by friend or foe, but will follow the principles of the 
religion of the Bible in all their writing, in all their preach¬ 
ing, and in all their social intercourse with Christians of all 
classes and all names—if these men will set their faces against 
intolerance, against persecution , against exclusiveness , against 
the principles of persecution in all its forms—if they will do 
this, all of this, the objectionable features in question will 
give way—slowly, it may be, but they will give way; and 
men of hot-headed religion and misguided zeal will find them¬ 
selves by themselves in this unholy crusade. The thing will 
become unpopular: its errors will be seen: its wrong will be 
noted : its inability to accomplish its own purposes will be 
recognized; and the great evil will abate , and the Churches 
will prosper, and God will be glorified. 


428 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


CHAPTER X. 

“AND WE EORBADE HIM BECAUSE HE FOLLOWETII NOT 

WITH US.” 

This is the essence of Romanism. It was afterwards 
abundantly demonstrated and illustrated in the exclusiveness 
of that celebrated corruption of Christianity. 

We forbade him because he followeth not with us. He 
that does not follow as we follow—he that does not do as we 
do—he that does not think as we think—he that does not say 
shibboleth as we say shibboleth—must be ostracized. This is 
the difficulty; and the only primary difficulty, Rome was ever 
in. The legitimate fruits of this claim to superior sanctity, 
to infallible wisdom, led Popery on to the palpable and prac¬ 
tical corruptions which led to the Reformation. Universal 
primacy is but another name for the principle which forbids 
Christian worship where the worshippers do not follow with us, 
but act according to the dictates of their own judgment and 
consciences. 

Rome says, “We are right, and everybody else is wrong:” 
common sense says, “All men are liable to error, more or less :” 
wisdom says, “All men are in error, more or less:” Christianity 
says, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ;” and Jesus Christ 
himself says, “ He that is not against us is for us.” 

Protestantism espouses the cause of common sense, of 
wisdom, and of Jesus Christ: discovers that religion is 
not religion at all unless it be free, unrestrained, unfet- 


TIIE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


429 


tered: disbelieves in human infallibility in toto; and asserts 
the Divinely guaranteed right in every man to read the Bible 
for himself, to worship God for himself, and to exercise his 
own conscience in all matters of faith between himself and 
his final Judge. Rome claims infallibility for the officers of 
the Church, as having come down to them through a chain 
of successive officers. Protestantism denies infallibility to 
this standard—acknowledges no infallibility beyond the lips 
of Jesus Christ personally, except his will, which by inspira¬ 
tion is transferred to the pages of holy writ. 

Romanism proclaims to the world, u Lo here ! No Christ¬ 
ianity out of Rome: we, and we alone, are the Church l” 
High-Churchism exclaims, u Lo here ! No Christianity out 
of succession : we, and we only, are the Church \” AVhile 
again we hear a shrill but feeble voice of bigotry from some 
few small departments of Anabaptism, crying, u Lo here ! No 
Christianity out of the water: we, and we only, are the 
Church!” 

And how are these discordant and conflicting claims to 
infallibility received by intelligent Christendom and an intel¬ 
ligent world ? One of these voices has been sounding in 
our ears about twelve hundred years; another about two 
hundred years and upwards; and the last a much shorter 
time. Do they make any impression upon the surrounding 
Christianity of the respective ages, the tranquillity of which 
they disturb by the incessant din and ceaseless clamor? 
Not the slightest. And why? Because the express lan¬ 
guage of Jesus Christ, in reply to the very express declara¬ 
tions they make, is stereotyped before us in the fiftieth verse 
of the ninth chapter of the Gospel according to St. Luke, 
“ Forbid him not; for he that is not against us is 
for us.” 

The very question now before us—ecclesiastical exclusive¬ 
ness—made its appearance and underwent a discussion in the 


430 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


Cburcli many years ago; the history of which runs on this 
wise : 

“And John answered and said, Master, we saw one casting 
out devils in thy name, and we forbade him, because he fol- 
loweth not with us. And Jesus said unto him, Forbid him 
not; for he that is not against us is for us.” 

Here the whole question of Romanism, exclusiveness, and 
intolerance, is formally and authoritatively settled for ever, so 
far as Jesus Christ’s authority to settle theological and eccle¬ 
siastical questions is recognized. The question, and the only 
question, is, Does he cast out devils in the name of Jesus 
Christ ? This, and this only, is the duty of Christians. 

Whether men do or do not follow with us, in the faith and 
practice of Christian duty, may be a matter of considerable 
importance. We may be wiser, better instructed, and more 
free from error than they; all this is quite likely. Then, if 
we be convinced of this, after carefully examining the mat¬ 
ter, without the assistance of sectarian prejudice, and in 
view of the settled truth that we ourselves are but fallible 
and liable to err, it is our duty to set on foot and keep on foot 
the most likely and probable means of eradicating the error. 

And what instrument will be most likely to prove effectual 
in the subjugation of this error? The sword of excision? the 
shaft of persecution ? To pronounce the man of honest error 
out of the Church ? To blast his religious reputation ? To 
declare that “ he is there, and we are here ?” Is this course 
the most probable, the most likely to cause him to lay aside 
the error and pursue a straighter way ? If so, then proceed; 
if one infliction does not prove sufficient, then add, and in¬ 
crease, in a philosophic and sensible way. Fire and fagot are, 
I believe, about the last instruments generally used in such 
cases. 

But all this is contrary to the Divine prescription. Jesus 
said unto him, Forhicl him not . 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


431 


Now, it is very clear that this man was in error. lie was 
not “with” the apostles, where he ought to have been. Had 
he been there, he would have done more good : he would have 
worked to better advantage; better for his own soul, better 
for those around. Nevertheless, he was doing good in the 
name of Christ: he was a Christian. Christ decided that 
he was a Christian, though mistaken in some things; and the 
imperative command was, Forbid him not. The apostles were 
not commanded that they should not approach him in kind¬ 
ness, and try to convince him of his error. They were com¬ 
manded not to pronounce authoritatively against him, and 
disown him as a Christian. It would be well if this teaching 
were heeded at the present day. 

The principle laid down by the Saviour is, that there may 
be error among Christians in the Church: that Christians are 
fallible men; they do not necessarily know every thing about 
Christianity as a system perfectly, because they are Chris¬ 
tians; but may pursue religious worship disadvantageous^ 
because of their defective information. But they are, never¬ 
theless, Christians in the Church. And really there seems to 
be considerable common sense in this view of the subject. 

Now, the good Episcopal brother who is a Churchman of 
high notions, sees his erring dissenter brother, and deplores 
his error, as all Christian men do. He desires to see him 
believe in the Divine right of episcopacy—in the apostolic 
succession : to come back and be a better Christian than he 
now is, that he may live better and die better. And how 
does he proceed to convince him of his error? The first 
thing he does is to inflict upon him the severest punishment 
of which he is capable. 

A question might arise here whether punishment is a very 
logical, or generally a very convincing argument ? But this 
question appears not to be thought of. 

The good Baptist brother has discovered, by dint of good- 


432 


THE ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION. 


fortune, superior wisdom, or in some other way, that his 
Pedobaptist brother has not used water enough in his bap¬ 
tism ; and that he is also mistaken on some legal question 
touching the qualifications of the minister to whose preaching 
he is accustomed to listen. Now these errors may be really 
worthy of serious notice, and ought to be cured. And how 
will we proceed in order in the most effectual way to cure 
the error? Why, an ecclesiastical error should be cured in the 
same way, in pursuance of the same principles, as in case of 
any other error. If a man be overtaken with physical infirm¬ 
ity—if he be sick, kill him ! If he be overtaken by eccle¬ 
siastical error, kill him ecclesiastically! If he have a head¬ 
ache, chop his head off! To cure means to kill. 

And really there is, perhaps, more logic in this, after all, 
than one at first might suppose. In a case of physical dis¬ 
ease, if you kill the patient, you certainly, in the most sum¬ 
mary and effectual way, get rid of the disease. And in case 
of ecclesiastical infirmity, if you likewise kill the subject 
ecclesiastically, the Church, in like manner, is rid of the 
infirmity. This, however, is the argument , the whole argu¬ 
ment, and nothing less than the argument, upon which all 
ecclesiastical exclusiveness is founded. 

Let the question be examined in any possible way. Sub¬ 
ject it to the most critical and logical analysis, and it amounts 
precisely to this: How shall we get rid of the infirmity ? 
Kill the subject. Gospel, guillotine, and grace, are synony¬ 
mous terms. Brotherly kindness means binding to the stake. 
Teaching means torturing. To cut off a man’s head is to con¬ 
vince him of the truth ! 

This is certainly reducing the sciences to a unit. All the 
means of moral suasion are centred in the inquisition, upon 
the same philosophic principle which centres all curative 
means in the halter, and all surgical instruments in the 
broad-axe. 


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